School Catchment Areas: How are the quality of schools dictating where parents choose to live?
Research by Nationwide Building Society has recently found that 20% of parents check the school league table or the school Ofsted ranking before choosing where to live and that two in five parents will pay more on a new home to be near a better school.
A high quality education is clearly very important to parents and due to this being entirely dependent on living within the catchment area of the school, parents are willing to make an offer, book their moving company and pay a considerable amount extra on their new home if it’s in the right location.
Almost one quarter of UK parents (23%) with a child aged between 5 and 16 years are willing to shell out between 2 and 10% extra on the price of a new home to live in the catchment area of a more prestigious school.
Although 2% doesn’t seem like that much extra, with the price of the  average UK home coming in at around £172,000 this adds an extra £3,500 to the overall cost of the home. For the one in ten parents who are inclined to pay an extra 10% on top the price of their new home, this increases the costs to £189,000, requiring the parents to fork out an extra £17,000 for the sake of their children’s education.
Where younger generations, who were previously unable able to afford a mortgage in these areas are now offered this opportunity thanks to the help to buy schemes for first time buyers. It means that those with younger children or looking to start families are given an equal footing with families who have a little more income, meaning that they too can send their children to the desired schools.
Despite the initial extra costs, living in the catchment area of a good school will only ever add value to your property. Providing the school’s reputation remains high when it comes to downsizing or relocating reselling the property should not prove too challenging.
Rightmove allows you to easily find nearby schools of the properties on site. This includes the type of school, the number of pupils and their age range. There are convenient links to the Ofsted reports and the Good Schools Guide, allowing you to quickly find out all the information you need about the school in question.
How much extra would you be willing to pay to buy a home in a catchment area for a good school?
This article was written by Abels Moving Services.
