Finding a Home Near Great Schools Pays Off

When I bought my first couple of homes I never even thought about the local schools. That’s because I wasn’t married when I bought the first one, and when I bought the second one with my wife, neither of us gave schools a second thought. We were just trying to find the best neighborhoods we could afford to live in, and the ones that looked safest.

 Luckily, as it turned out, both of those homes were located in better school districts. Since then, a good school district is one of our top criteria when looking for a home. Since we came to this realization, I can’t tell you how many “perfect” homes we looked at and ultimately passed over because the local schools weren’t very good. There were times where we even broadened our standard to areas where the schools were rated a bit less than 10, 9 or 8 on a scale of 1-10. The home we’re currently living in has schools that are rated 9 or 10 across the board, but it’s not always as easy as you may think to find those areas.

 How do you find these better school districts? If you don’t have a realtor, sites like Zillow have a great built-in feature to narrow down the better school areas. Take notes or even screenshots of the map with schools pinpointed, and do your home searches in those areas. If you have a realtor, you can ask them to build their home searches around those schools. Realtors who have kids (like me) fully understand your concerns around schools, especially now in 2021.

Another benefit of living in an area with great schools concerns property value and the ability to make a quicker sale in the future when the time comes. When you’re ready to sell, I guarantee many home hunters are looking for those “elusive” homes near great schools for their kids, and to them, it’s worth paying a little (or a lot) extra. Keep good school districts in mind when home hunting, and I promise you won’t regret the extra time and occasional frustration.