San Francisco Primary Education Options and Their Impact on Real Estate Values

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKr018NhRUo&hl=en_US&fs=1&]Education is an issue in any urban area and that’s no different here in our City-by-the-Bay. The school year or district hasn’t been an issue in the City in the last twenty years that I’ve been a broker for several reasons. The primary one being that public schools are lottery based not district based. Our real estate market has never been ruled by the school year like out-lying areas probably due to the lower number of children per capita.

Things have been changing over the last eight years or so, however. More parents have made the decision to stay in the City when their children approach school age. This is a huge lifestyle decision driven by a couple of factors, I believe. The decision to commit to staying in the City rather than fleeing to the suburbs has a lot to do with residents’ commitment not only to the City but more particularly to their specific neighborhood and the more families that stay the more children that are present which increases a family feeling on the street and in the neighborhood. There is also the convenience of living in a walking urban neighborhood and many of my clients continually refer to all the activities that are present in the City versus the suburbs. There are also looming issues with public schools, i.e. class size and quality.

I have heard the process described as one in which the independent (private) schools were formally a fall back to a family’s search for a good public school. With the state budget slashing education funding, it has now been described as one in which the public schools are becoming a back up to the independent schools. This situation cuts across all lines and affects what were top-notch public schools in suburban locations. I believe it will be these areas that formally had great public schools and home prices reflecting the desirability of living in the district in those communities that will suffer most as education conscious families make a decision to move to communities with top-notch independent schools. And in this scenario, the City should prevail.

The issue has quickly become one of not enough independent school slots which is leading to the creation of new independent schools and parents in specific public schools writing checks to support “their” school in a more typically independent manner. I have read recently in a New York Times editorial that America was made great because of its education system and we’re slowly and systematically taking our education system apart. It does require parents to be much more involved than it did 40 years ago in vetting each school whether public or private. As the changes continually come at us, I believe this issue will not weaken home values but most probably strengthen support for existing home values in our City.