Latest NewsThe right Sydney school zone can boost House prices by 2.5 per centThursday, 18 July 2019

 

 

Melissa Heagney  [Senior Domain Journalist]


Living in a highly regarded primary school’s zone boosts Sydney house prices by 2.5 per cent – higher than the premium for similarly regarded high schools, new research shows.

And properties in zones with both single-sex and co-educational schools will have house prices that are higher still.

Monash University senior econometrics and business statistics lecturer Daniel Melser analysed the impact of school characteristics on NSW housing markets between 2013 and 2017.

He found the price premium for a highly regarded high school zone was 1.4 per cent.

While buyers were better off, renters may feel the price sting as rents in these same school zones were higher. Weekly rents were found to be 1.2 per cent higher for primary school zones and 0.5 per cent for high schools in the study.

Living near a good primary school can boost your house price in Sydney, new research

“What’s interesting is the importance of primary schools [to home buyers],” Dr Melser said in presenting his research at the Economics for Better Policy forum in Melbourne on Tuesday. “Primary school quality appears to be more important than secondary school quality.”

The study, which used house sale and rental data from Australian Property Monitors, looked at clusters of schools in and around school zones across Sydney, but did not include select schools.

Dr Melser said the study looked at the perceptions of both single-sex and co-educational school zones and whether either added more to house prices. 

The study also looked at areas with zones where both co-educational and single-sex schools were available.

“We find that single-sex schools are regarded similarly to co-educational schools,” Dr Melser said. “There is a mildly positive effect from being in a single-sex school zone [in terms of house prices].”

Homes in single-sex school zones had prices 1.5 per cent higher than those outside the zone.

Houses that were in zones which had access to both single-sex and co-educational schools had higher prices than those who had access to one or the other.

These houses had prices 3.5 per cent higher than those outside the zone.

While zones added to house prices, the study also looked at whether results from the National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy tests given to years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students influenced the reputations of schools and therefore affected house prices.

The study looked at house prices three months before NAPLAN results in NSW were released in 2016 and then three months after. It also compared results in 2008 when NAPLAN was first introduced.

“There is very little change,” Dr Melser said. “We concluded that NAPLAN does not lead to changes in house prices or house rents. I’m probably not that surprised at the result.”

The study surmised that there was not a lot of new information coming out of NAPLAN results in terms of school perceptions.

“It appears to us that people are looking at the overall achievement level of these schools,” he said.

 

Previous Next

Share This Article




Previous Articles