Ask Eli: Arlington School District With The Most Value

This regularly-scheduled sponsored Q&A column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Rosslyn resident. Please submit your questions to him via email for response in future columns. Enjoy!

Question: How do Arlington County school systems impact the market price of homes in Arlington? Which districts offer the most value based on quality of education and the cost of buying a home?

Answer: For most families, finding the right home in Northern Virginia is a delicate balance of budget, schools and commute, with the latter two having the biggest impact on market price. If you’ve chosen to put down roots in Arlington, I’ve put together some data on Arlington County Public School districts for middle school and high school that will help you understand how your school district selection will impact your budget.

The Data

Please note that the data below is not based on all homes sold within a given school district. It is a sampling of homes within a specific sub-market in an attempt to present an apples-to-apples comparison of the premium/discount buyers can expect when searching within each district, that can be applied to other sub-markets. For example, the average sold price for homes in the Jefferson+Wakefield district is far less than $1M, but within the chosen sub-market, it is just over $1M.

In order to compare homes within a relatively similar and popular sub-market, I have chosen to use sales dating back to Jan 1, 2014 for detached homes built within the last 20 years with at least four bedrooms, excluding distressed sales. This prevents sales of tear-downs/full renovation homes from throwing off the data and gives us a pretty clear picture of the relative cost differential by school district. Not every home listing is populated with school districts (I estimate that 5-10% is missing at least one school), so those sales are excluded from the data. That is why the total sales for just middle school and just high school data are slightly higher than middle and high school combined data, because some listings just had one of the two fields populated.

School Rankings

GS Rating = GreatSchools.org rating for each school. I thought this would be an interesting, objective way to compare relative value based on a 3^rd party rating, which has a huge influence on buyers’ decisions. You may also want to check out Niche.com for some different rankings of our publics schools and where Arlington County is ranked as the #1 school district in the DC area and in Virginia or US News and World Report for national rankings of our high schools.

Data Summary

For those of you familiar with the Arlington County Public School system and its impact on home prices, most of this data falls in line with expectations. Here are some comments on the findings:

• Williamsburg+Yorktown is the highest rated school district combination in Arlington and, unsurprisingly, the most expensive to buy into.
• Kenmore+Wakefield is the lowest rated school district combination in Arlington, but the second least expensive to buy into. However, due to the relatively low number of sales in this sub-market, the data here is slightly misleading because 2/3 of the sales are new construction which have a substantial impact on average sold price. The low number of total sales is due to the limited number of homes sold that are built in the last 20 years, not the a reflection on the total number of homes sold.
• The best bang for your buck is the Swanson+Yorktown combination, offering the lowest cost per rating point (GreatSchools)
• Despite having the fourth highest combined rating score (GreatSchools), Jefferson+Washington Lee is the second most expensive district to buy into. Why? It serves the popular and expensive Lyon Park community.
• For reference, here are the Arlington County Middle School and High School boundary maps.

Once again, please remember that this is a limited data set meant to provide relative cost differential between school districts that can be applied across sub-markets. I chose to use this sub-market (described in Data section) because it offers, in my opinion, the cleanest results available. The sold prices within this sub-market are the most expensive in Arlington because it includes homes built in the last 20 years. Each district has numerous opportunities to buy detached homes at much lower prices, as well as townhouse and apartments for even less.

Which District Do You Think Offers The Most Value?

What do you think about this data? Even more importantly, for those of you who have children in Arlington County Public Schools, which districts do you think offer the most value for families, meaning, the best education relative to the cost of a house in that district?

If you’d like a question answered in my weekly column, please send an email to [email protected]. To read any of my older posts, visit the blog section of my website at www.EliResidential.com. Call me directly at (703) 539-2529.

Eli Tucker is a licensed Realtor in Virginia, Washington DC and Maryland with Real Living At Home, 2420 Wilson Blvd #101 Arlington, VA 22201, (202) 518-8781.