$50 per foot: Top-notch schools add home value

Homebuyers are willing to pay a premium in order to live in a top-ranked school district, according to a new study from Seattle-based Redfin.

Buyers are forking over an average of $50 more per square foot for homes near top-notch schools, according to Redfin. The brokerage used MLS databases to calculate the median sales price and price per square foot of homes within school zones during the period of May 1 to July 31.

Redfin’s analysis found that even within the same neighborhoods, homebuyers are willing to pay substantially more for homes that fall in a top school district than for homes served by average-ranked schools.

“Homes just a short distance apart with nearly identical attributes are selling for drastically different prices,” the authors of the report wrote. “We’ve looked across the country at homes that have sold in the last three months and found five examples where prices vary on identical homes by as much as $130,000.”