Evaluate Schools Before You Buy Your Home

The quality of schools is a contributing factor for anyone buying a home. According to the National Association of Realtors, more than half of homebuyers with children, rate the local school district’s quality as a significant factor influencing their choice of a neighborhood. Even if you don’t have kids yourself, your next buyer might, and they might base their decision to buy on the school district that serves your home.

The Prescott, Prescott Valley, Chino Valley, and Dewey-Humboldt areas have numerous award-winning public, private, and charter schools in the area. Each has something unique to offer.

• Prescott Unified School District: Six primary schools and one high school.
• Humboldt Unified School District: Serving Prescott Valley and Dewey-Humboldt with five elementary, two middle schools, and one high school.
• Chino Valley Unified School District: Two primary schools, one middle school, and one high school.
• Charter and Private Schools: Tri-City, BASIS, AAEC, Trinity Christian, and Franklin Phonetic.

With so many options, the challenge is how do you evaluate schools? What’s the best approach for understanding if your local schools will score your property an “A” or harm the property value?

Resources

Luckily, there are some excellent on-line resources out there for evaluating schools. Here are a few I’ve come across which provide an excellent place to begin your research:

Education.com 

A major portal site for education everywhere. Website:  Education.com

Great Schools

A good search engine for researching schools, you can do zip code based searches that will help you learn a ton about the public and private institutions in the area. Website:  Greatschools.org

Project Appleseed

A website dedicated to improving public schools, you can learn a lot here about the crucial elements of what makes a local school an excellent local school. Website:  ProjectAppleseed.org

Evaluate Distance

Distance from your new house to the school might be an issue. For example, can the kids walk to school? If not, where’s the bus stop? Are you willing or able to drive your kids to school every day? Fortunately, most of the school websites offer bus route information.

Ask Questions

Neighbors may be a good source for first-hand information. But be cautious, you’ll only want to talk to a few neighbors — as you probably are aware, everyone has different needs when it comes to education.

Here are a handful of questions to ask yourself if you’re doing research:

• How comprehensive is the school’s safety policy?
• What social/support services are available at the school?
• How does the school handle discipline?
• Are people involved in a parent/teacher organization?
• How healthy is the school district’s annual report?

Visit the School

If time permits, a visit to the school will be incredibly helpful in your decision-making process. Call the school office to set up a time to meet with an administrator and take a school tour.

Finally, be sure to ask me for information. As a realtor in the Prescott area, I know the schools very well and are happy to help any way I can. Call (928) 916-1921.