Home buyers are willing to pay a premium in order to live in a top-ranked school district, a new study finds. They're forking over an average of $50 more per square foot for homes near top-notch schools, according to Redfin. The brokerage used MLS databases to calculate the median sales price and price per square foot of homes within school zones during the period of May 1 to July 31. 

Redfin’s analysis found that even within the same neighborhoods, home buyers are willing to pay substantially more for homes that fall in a top school district than for homes served by average-ranked schools. 

“Homes just a short distance apart with nearly identical attributes are selling for drastically different prices,” the report says. “We’ve looked across the country at homes that have sold in the last three months and found five examples where prices vary on identical homes by as much as $130,000.” 

Coastal California showed the biggest differences in home prices in the country based on school districts. Homes in the highest-ranked school zones in Los Angeles sold for $300,000 more than comparable homes in lower-ranked school zones; in San Jose, the price difference was $500,000. 

The smallest differences in home prices based on school districts were in Queens, N.Y., Raleigh, N.C., and Eugene, Ore., the study found. 

Source: Redfin