The Silicon Valley Real Estate And Housing Blog: Trulia: Where schools matter and where they don’t in homebuying

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Trulia: Where schools matter and where they don’t in homebuying

When I was taking classes to get my real estate license, they taught me everything about selling houses - legal aspects, finance, paperwork, marketing, writing the offer, real estate economics, but nothing about the one thing that motivates many buyers to buy in the areas that they do; good school districts.

After getting my license I quickly learned that homes in good school district areas generally command a higher asking price than a similar property in a not so great school district area. Here in the Silicon Valley Cupertino, parts of Sunnyvale, parts of San Jose and others that I'm not going to get into, fetch a nice price for the lucky homeowners who are selling in these areas.

Neighborhood

Either schools are of critical importance to a homebuyer, or they matter not at all.

There’s very little middle ground because either homebuyers have kids or they don’t.

Trulia’s recent survey found that when searching for a home, the quality of the local schools is an important factor for families with children.

According to a recent Trulia survey, 19% of Americans indicated that their dream home is located in a great school district. But among parents of children under 18, the percentage of Americans who want to live in a great school district jumps to 35%, in contrast to 12% of those without kids.

Also, the survey also revealed that a great school district is almost twice as important to those who search online for their dream home on a weekly or monthly basis than those who only search annually.

Here’s what they found.