Want to live near a good school? It will cost an extra $205,000
(Charles V. Tines/AP)
It costs a whole lot more to buy a house in a good school district. A new report by Jonathan Rothwell of the Brookings Institution has the numbers:
Across the 100 largest metropolitan areas, housing costs an average of 2.4 times as much, or nearly $11,000 more per year, near a high-scoring public school than near a low-scoring public school.
This housing cost gap reflects that home values are $205,000 higher on average in the neighborhoods of high-scoring versus low-scoring schools. Near high-scoring schools, typical homes have 1.5 additional rooms and the share of housing units that are rented is roughly 30 percentage points lower than in neighborhoods near low-scoring schools.
Not surprisingly, Rothwell also finds that middle- and high-income students are far more likely to attend good schools than low-income students are. In a separate essay, he argues that anti-density zoning laws can exacerbate this inequality, by making it harder for people to move into good school districts.
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