What premium can homes close to top U.S. schools command? Quite a substantial one, it turns out—no less than 135%, when measured nationwide.
A recent study by Realtor.com®, “Where Families Are Heading: Most Popular School Districts This Moving Season,” published in August 2025, compared median listing prices in the most popular U.S. school districts with those in their wider metro areas.
It found that from May to July 2025, homes in these districts—and near schools rated highly by the widely used school search website GreatSchools—attracted a 135% price premium, with a median home price of US$1.21M compared with nearly US$515k for homes out-of-district but in the same wider metro area.
Even where GreatSchools ratings were mixed, simply being located in what buyers perceived as desirable school districts added a 29% premium. And for buyers purchasing in the country’s most sought-after school districts, the premiums were far higher.
Topping the list with the highest percentage premium of 390.9% and a US$2.2M median home price was a district in Dallas, Texas. Meanwhile, the priciest school district in the U.S. was in Laguna Beach, California, where buyers faced a 322% premium and nearly US$5M median home price. It should be noted that this impact on value is material to buyers and sellers irrespective of whether they actually intend to make use of the applicable schools themselves.