November 8, 2023
How to Evaluate School Ratings For Single-Family Homes
When you’re getting ready to buy a home, there are a lot of factors you need to consider. Is the home in good shape, is it in a good area, and are the markets in that area on the rise?
But one of the most important things you need to evaluate, whether you’re using the home as an investment property or not, is the quality of the school district your house will be in.
Getting a read on the quality of a school district can be a challenge, to say the least. Read on to learn more about evaluating a school district and get the best start in Oklahoma City real estate investing.
The Difference Good Schooling Can Make
Before we dive into how you can evaluate the quality of public schools in your prospective new neighborhood, let’s talk some about why it matters. If you have kids, sending them to a quality school can impact their prospects for the rest of their life. And you might be surprised to learn that most of the benefits of a good school happen outside of lesson times.
When your children go to a good school, they will spend time in an environment where success is assumed. Many of their classmates will plan on attending college and will prepare accordingly, studying hard for tests and taking the ACT and SAT early. The right school can also grant more college preparedness and scholarship opportunities, which can help your child get into a better college and earn more career prospects.
More Stable Home Value
Even if you don’t have kids, buying a home in a neighborhood with good schools can be a smart choice. For people who do have kids, a quality school district creates a lot more value in a home. This means that when you get ready to sell your house (or if you plan to rent it), you’ll be able to get a better price.
As we’ll discuss more in a moment, better school districts also tend to be surrounded by better neighborhoods. Having higher surrounding property values can help keep your home’s resale value high. And people who live in these higher-value homes will also tend to improve their properties, which makes investing in a quality school district more than worth it.
More Reputable Neighborhoods
Whether you plan to live in the home you’re buying or use it as an investment property, buying in a good school district is a smart move. Where there are good school districts, more reputable neighborhoods will follow. People who send their children to good schools tend to also be focused on improving their communities, starting with their neighborhoods.
In a good school district, you’re more likely to see lower crime rates and safer streets. People will tend to maintain their homes well and will set up more neighborhood amenities, including parks and neighborhood groups. This makes for a more pleasant living experience for either you or your tenants.
Sell Your Home Faster
When you get ready to sell your home, you want to make sure you can move it quickly. There’s nothing worse than having to pay for two mortgages at once if your old house doesn’t sell and you’ve already closed on your new one. Not to mention the longer your house sits on the market, the more its sale value goes down since buyers assume there must be something wrong with it.
Some studies have shown that houses in quality school districts tend to sell about a week faster than comparable homes in bad school districts. That one week may not seem like a big difference, but it could save you hundreds or thousands if it means the difference between your house sitting for three weeks and a month. It could also improve your selling price by a few thousand dollars based on time on the market alone.
Public School Alternatives
So let’s say you’ve found your dream house; everything about it is perfect except the school district it’s in. But there are plenty of alternatives to public schooling if you do still have school-age kids, right? There are a few alternatives, but all of them require sacrifices in one form or fashion.
Many people living in sub-par school districts may choose to send their children to private schools. Some areas also allow a child living outside the school district to attend a better public school, but they will have to pay tuition. Some parents who have a flexible schedule may also choose to homeschool their children.
Costs of Private Schools
If you want your kids to get the highest quality education possible and you don’t live in a great school district, it’s hard to argue with the benefits of private schooling. These institutions can afford to hire the best faculty and staff, and many of them have expanded extracurricular programs. They may also offer more college prep programs, AP courses, or even IB certification options for their students.
However, private schools do come at a cost—quite literally. The average cost of annual private school tuition is somewhere around $12,000, and that may not include activity fees, uniform costs, and more. Putting a child through thirteen years of private schooling could cost you $150,000 or more, depending on which school you send them to.
Downsides of Homeschooling
If that $1,000 a month price tag for private school is sounding a little steep, you may be considering homeschooling. And if you have a parent who’s able to stay home and manage the schooling, that can be a feasible option. But many parents aren’t able to devote the time that would be required to homeschool their students, especially if they are a single parent.
Homeschooling may also limit your child’s opportunities for normal school activities. They will not get to join clubs, and they may not be able to participate in bands, choirs, or sports teams. And parents will need to set up structured socialization time for their homeschooled children so they learn how to interact with large groups of peers.
Know the Right Criteria
When you get ready to start evaluating school districts, the first thing you need to do is figure out your criteria for what school district excellence means. Oftentimes, it’s easy to look at a grade on a rating site and base your entire opinion of the school off that letter. But like letter grades in schools, the real evaluation of quality is often much more complex than it seems.
Some of the things you may want to look at when evaluating a school are average standardized test scores in that district. You should also consider graduation rates, college acceptance rates, and scholarship award averages. Finally, you may want to look at performance from extracurricular groups, such as sports teams, bands, choirs, and cheerleading teams.
Figure Out Your School District
Once you know what you’re looking for, it will be time to start digging into the details of your own school district. Depending on the size of the city you’re moving to, there may be several school districts throughout the city. You’ll want to make sure you know which zone your prospective house falls into.
Most real estate websites, including Zillow and Realtor.com, will list the school district your house falls into. If you’re not sure or if your house is close to the zone line, talk to your real estate agent. They’ll have the latest information about which houses fall into which school zones and will be able to help you figure it out.
Look at Rating Websites
A great place to start evaluating your school district is on third-party rating websites. These sites look at everything from graduation rates and college attendance statistics to standardized test scores, teacher turnover, and more. They can provide you with a great snapshot view of a school’s overall performance in a quick, easy-to-understand format.
However, it’s important to note that these websites don’t give a full in-depth view of the quality of a school. They only look at the publically available information, and their rating systems can be somewhat limited. While they provide an excellent place to start your evaluation process, it should not start and end with these websites.
Talk to Your Realtor
After you look at rating websites, you may want to have a conversation with your realtor about the quality of the school districts your prospective homes are in. Your realtor spends their days learning everything they can about your local housing market. This includes getting a good read on the school districts and what they’re actually like.
Ask your realtor whether they’ve had any recent clients with children who have bought houses in the school district you’re considering. You may also want to ask what the local buzz about that school district is. This information, along with their overall opinion, can give you a better idea of what each school district is actually like.
Check the Department of Education
As you start diving deeper into the school district you may want to buy in, one great resource you can use is the Department of Education website. The Department of Education keeps detailed statistics about every public school district in the country. In fact, this database is where many third-party review sites get their information; viewing it for yourself can help give you a clearer picture of the quality of the school district.
Find your prospective school district on the Department of Education website and take a close look at their data. They’ll have basic information, such as demographics and standardized test scores. But they’ll also evaluate how well a district prepares students for college and how much accountability the district practices.
Visit the School District Website
After you visit the Department of Education website, your next stop should be the school district website. You don’t want to make this your first stop; having some unbiased information can help you weed out the claims that have a more positive spin on them. But what better place to learn about a school district than from the district themselves?
Look for what sorts of extracurricular activities the district provides, as well as how much they support the arts. You may also want to see what kind of additional academic support they provide for their students. Things like college prep courses, ACT and SAT study days, and after-school tutoring options can all bode well for a district’s quality.
Visit the School
Your final step in evaluating the quality of a school district should be to visit the school your children will be attending. Obviously, you won’t want to visit schools for every house you consider, so this should be something you do when you’re almost ready to put down an offer. But there are few substitutes for showing up and seeing the school for yourself.
Contact the school district and ask to arrange a tour of the school and classrooms. If possible, meet with a teacher and discuss how they approach classroom management and lessons. Look for things like on-campus nursing facilities, a quality cafeteria, safety measures, and strong teacher care programs.
Learn More About Oklahoma City Real Estate Investing
When you’re getting ready to buy a house, it’s important to take a look at the school district the house is located in. Even if you don’t have kids or don’t plan to live in the house, a good school district can help give your home a higher value and help it sell quicker. Start with third-party websites, but also check the Department of Education and talk to your realtor and the school itself.
If you’d like to learn more about Oklahoma City real estate investing, check out the rest of our site at The Virtual Real Estate Team. We help investors grow their wealth with real estate investing in Oklahoma City. Schedule an appointment with us today and start setting up a proven plan for financial wellness.