Study: Parents Can Still Make the Grade With Well-Priced Homes Near Great Schools

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - May 19, 2015) - Every parent wants to give their children the best head start possible, and access to a good school is always at the top of the list. But given the unending rise in property values in the GTA, many young families worry they are being priced out of the market when looking to purchase near top-ranked schools. For the most part, their concerns are well founded.

A top school district is one of the key priorities for any house hunter, whether they have school-aged children or not; a good school district translates to a good neighbourhood and strong property values. New research by Toronto real estate brokerage, TheRedPin indicates that in Toronto, buyers will pay a shocking average of $317,000 (or 36.66%) more for a detached home near a top school than the average price for the city at large. For the GTA, the difference is $268,000 (35%).

But all is not lost for parents looking to make the grade for their children. One clear choice based on the research is to opt for a condo lifestyle. Condos within the boundaries of the best schools in the GTA, sell on par with the average, meaning there is no premium for condo living near an A+ school.

Surprisingly, the research also found that there are several Toronto/GTA neighbourhoods where families can affordably get to the top of the class without paying a crushing premium.

TheRedPin.com's study shows a number of anomalous opportunities to find affordable homes in top school districts that are well below the average. In fact, the numbers prove that families can save as much as $114,530 below the average in some top T.O. school districts:

Toronto's Most Affordable Top School Neighbourhoods

• Kennedy Public School, near Steeles Avenue East and Kennedy Road in Scarborough, received a perfect ranking (10/10) from the Fraser Institute. Detached homes in this area sold for as much as 10.4% ($98,490) less than the city average, and semi-detached homes in this school district sold for prices 14% ($93,306) below the Toronto average in 2014.
  
  
• For parents of high-school students, deals were found on detached homes near William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate, which was one of Ontario's top-ranked high schools with a score of 8.8. In this district, homes sold for as low as 5% ($50,787) below the city average.
  
  
• Arbor Glen Public School also received a perfect 10 rating, and the surrounding area saw below average prices on semi-detached and townhomes. Semis could be found for up to 17% ($114,530) below average, while buyers of townhomes saved as much as 16.6% ($82,274).
  
  
• In the catchment area for Cherokee Public School, near Don Mills and Finch, detached homes sold for up to 12% ($112,089) below the Toronto average, and semi-detached homes sold for roughly $16,557 below the Toronto average.
  
  

"Many parents come to us struggling with the top school vs. budget issue and have to stretch their budgets to the limit to make it work," said Rokham Fard, CMO and Co-Founder of TheRedPin.com. "On their behalf, we decided to crunch the numbers and look for opportunities where they could have both. The good news is that we found there were a number of strong school areas where homes were priced below the average for the rest of the city."

Check out this helpful infographic for the details on great schools and even better deals across the GTA

Methodology:

Drawing on a 2014 report from the Fraser Institute* and GTA sales data from January 1, 2014 to March 31, 2015, TheRedPin.com analysed home prices in neighbourhoods in the GTA that contain A+-rated schools. The results were surprising.

* The Fraser Institute's Report Card on Ontario's Elementary Schools, 2014 ranked 3,030 schools across the province.

The ranking system was based on nine academic indicators from the results of province-wide reading, writing and math tests administered by the province's Education Quality and Accountability Office.

About TheRedPin:

TheRedPin connects people, data and technology. Our platform carries the largest database of active residential listings in the Greater Toronto Area, with plans to expand nationally. We are a challenger brand, with a unique business model that streamlines the real estate journey, and provides exceptional end-to-end services and benefits, not found at other traditional brokerages.

Founded in 2010, four friends recognized that the real estate industry might be the only sector not influenced by technology. The four saw this as an opportunity to reinvent the way people bought and sold properties, more specifically the way homes were searched. Today, TheRedPin is much more than that.

We are a tech startup that doesn't answer to the industry, we answer to our clients and ourselves.