Median House Price & School Rating Analysis

It is never a challenge finding people who have an opinion on what drives residential property values upwards. Most of us have had some kind of experience purchasing property or know others who had done the same and when it comes to the age old question of “what makes property grow?” it is quite clear that the macro level drivers are typically universally agreed upon, such as low interest rates or low unemployment levels etc.. However, it is also quite clear that views can differ significantly when it comes to more localised micro market drivers.

For example, when obtaining data and research for our clientele, we have always paid close attention to school zones and this is analysed from both an investment and owner occupier perspective.

As this has been part of our analysis criteria since our inception, we were excited to recently read a piece of research undertaken by Domain on the Brisbane market. Domain indicated that house prices in some Brisbane school catchments have skyrocketed by almost 30% over the past 12 months, proving that “education is not only golden but worth far more to families than a big pool and river views” in some instances.

A further analysis on the Sydney market by Monash University’s econometrics discipline identified a “5% increase in school quality scores, as measured by NAPLAN testing, increased house prices by around about 1 per cent”.

I have also experienced this first hand acting for a number of purchasers looking to secure their home in specific school catchment areas. As their budgets allowed, they were comfortable offering what was required to secure their home and in most cases the offer was higher than what the vendor anticipated. If this is now common amongst families who want to live in certain catchments, naturally this will have some kind of positive impact on property pricing within these suburbs.

In recent times, data focussed on school’s performance across elements like NAPLAN test results has become readily available. Astute Property Network now has the capacity to analyse and map this school data visually in various catchments areas to guide high quality investment decision making.

This is just one exciting advancement that we have made in our business for 2021 to further improve our service level offering and investment outcomes for clients.