How much is the median home price in an area with good public schools? (Dallas: for sale, real estate)

[Walter Benjamin]

After reading so many threads on this topic, I decided to search a local real estate website for the average single-family home price for listings located within the attendance zone for the top academic local public (non-charter, non-magnet) neighborhood high schools, as listed by SAT score at the Dallas Area Schools blog.

Dallas, Texas Area School Information: 2012 - DFW High Schools ranked by SAT scores

Of course, there are a million caveats. The quality of the median home differs in all kinds of ways from place to place, there are plenty of reasons other than school quality to rate a house. Also, the number of homes for sale varies hugely, from hundreds in parts of Frisco to a couple of dozen in Pearce. Also the variation from the mean is huge, so this tells you not too much about the cheapest home for sale in each place. It does, however, suggest what the budget should be for an easy and successful home search in each area.

Prices are in thousands, rounded to the nearest 5 (thousand). Wish I could get a table to display right.

Listed by SAT score

high school * SAT * price in thousands

Highland Park 1792 $1,750
Southlake Carroll 1723 $800
Plano West 1715 $500
Coppell 1700 $450
Plano Senior 1695 $250
Flower Mound 1687 $375
Lovejoy 1650 $575
Pearce 1636 $350
FM Marcus 1631 $415
Grapevine 1629 $425
Frisco Centennial 1623 $225
McKinney Boyd 1619 $345
Colleyville Heritag 1613 $400
Frisco Liberty 1613 $365
Keller 1607 $460
Frisco 1606 $550
Celina 1605 $300
Hebron 1604 $450
Sherman 1602 $143
Plano East 1596 $350
FW Paschal 1592 $350
Allen 1589 $420
Rockwall 1587 $265
McKinney 1586 $350
Arlington Martin 1584 $215


Listed by median home price

high school * SAT * price in thousands

Highland Park 1792 $1,750
Southlake Carroll 1723 $800
Lovejoy 1650 $575
Frisco 1606 $550
Plano West 1715 $500
Keller 1607 $460
Coppell 1700 $450
Hebron 1604 $450
Grapevine 1629 $425
Allen 1589 $420
FM Marcus 1631 $415
Colleyville Heritage1613 $400
Flower Mound 1687 $375
Frisco Liberty 1613 $365
Pearce 1636 $350
Plano East 1596 $350
FW Paschal 1592 $350
McKinney 1586 $350
McKinney Boyd 1619 $345
Celina 1605 $300
Rockwall 1587 $265
Plano Senior 1695 $250
Frisco Centennial 1623 $225
Arlington Martin 1584 $215
Sherman 1602 $143


Listed by "bang for the buck" - fewest dollars for most SAT points

high school * SAT * home price * $ per SAT point

Sherman 1602 $143 $0.09
Arlington Martin 1584 $215 $0.14
Frisco Centennial 1623 $225 $0.14
Plano Senior 1695 $250 $0.15
Rockwall 1587 $265 $0.17
Celina 1605 $300 $0.19
McKinney Boyd 1619 $345 $0.21
Pearce 1636 $350 $0.21
Plano East 1596 $350 $0.22
FW Paschal 1592 $350 $0.22
McKinney 1586 $350 $0.22
Flower Mound 1687 $375 $0.22
Frisco Liberty 1613 $365 $0.23
Colleyville Heritage1613 $400 $0.25
FM Marcus 1631 $415 $0.25
Grapevine 1629 $425 $0.26
Allen 1589 $420 $0.26
Coppell 1700 $450 $0.26
Hebron 1604 $450 $0.28
Keller 1607 $460 $0.29
Plano West 1715 $500 $0.29
Frisco 1606 $550 $0.34
Lovejoy 1650 $575 $0.35
Southlake Carroll 1723 $800 $0.46
Highland Park 1792 $1,750 $0.98

[WorldKlas]

Arlington Martin school zone is a screaming deal, a hidden secret to so many. Gorgeous custom homes, low crime, trees, an incredible family friendly environment with community centers, great parks, wonderful shopping, low traffic. Because this pocket is nestled in Arlington, it gets overlooked by Arlington haters.

[ChristieP]

The median home price in Grapevine is NOT $425k. Not even close!

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by ChristieP

The median home price in Grapevine is NOT $425k. Not even close!

Also, 800K seems awfully high for Southlake, even given that it's Southlake.

If you look at the Census numbers, they show a much lower median home value of right around 500K: American FactFinder - Results * (5 yr estimates) and American FactFinder - Results * (3 yr estimates). That was 2008-2012 and 2010-2012, but even assuming 20% appreciation since then (a fairly aggressive assumption) that would only put the median at 600K, not 800K.

That said, if one is looking at median price of homes for sale, the number could be higher given that the new construction tends to be bigger/more expensive than existing stock, and that number might make more sense for a person looking to buy now and move in which seemed to be the OP's point...but those numbers are far more volatile due to limited properties for sale (which, granted, the OP noted).

[bencronin04]

Maybe they took the current homes for sale price's?

[TurtleCreek80]

This is a great thread and will hopefully cool the heels of some potential relocatees who see Dallas as the promised land full of high-paying jobs and $200k homes (the metro's median price) zoned to awesome schools. The reality is that 90% of the top public schools are located in areas that cost 1.5-2X the DFW median.

Now Walterbenjamin's median price info was probably only as good as the listings on the market right now and not the actual NTREIS data, but it's pretty solid for being directional....


The DMN posts quarterly real estate data for the MLS "areas" (ie, Area 17 = Oak Lawn & Uptown, Area 25 = Park Cities + 75209, etc). Here is the Jan-March 2014 sales data. This data would lead one to believe it's easy to find good housing zoned to great schools for the DFW area $200k-ish median price, but I think anyone who's currently in the market for a a $321k home in Coppell or a $235k home in Flower Mound or a $1.0M home in HPISD knows it's near impossible to find something decent at those price points right now, and if there is something, 19 other well-qualified families are bidding against you.

Listed by SAT score

high school * SAT * Q1 Median Home Sale Price

Highland Park 1792 $1.106M

Southlake Carroll 1723 $612k

Plano West 1715 $254k (reflects ALL of Plano....not representative of 75093 at all)

Coppell 1700 $321k

Plano Senior 1695 $254k (reflects ALL of Plano....appears to be spot on Walter's analysis)

Flower Mound 1687 $235k (includes Lewisville AND Flower Mound, obvi understated for Flower Mound)

Lovejoy 1650 $355k (reflects all of Fairview)

Pearce 1636 $320k (I pulled just the Far North Dallas area)

FM Marcus 1631 $235k (includes Lewisville AND Flower Mound, obvi understated for Flower Mound)

Grapevine 1629 $268k

Frisco Centennial 1623 $317k (includes ALL of Frisco)

McKinney Boyd 1619 $236k (includes ALL of McKinney)

Colleyville Heritag 1613 $506k

Frisco Liberty 1613 $317k (includes ALL of Frisco)

Keller 1607 $340k

Frisco 1606 $317k (includes ALL of Frisco)

Celina 1605 not included in DMN data...too far out of metropex

Hebron 1604 not even worth putting down (in the $180k range depending on whether you pull the massive C-FB area or The Colony)

Sherman 1602 not included in DMN data...not in metroplex

Plano East 1596 $254k (reflects ALL of Plano)

FW Paschal 1592 FW not included in DMN data

Allen 1589 $250k (seems low?)

Rockwall 1587 $200k

McKinney 1586 $236k (includes ALL of McKinney)

Arlington Martin 1584 $146k (includes ALL of Arlington so take with grain of salt!)

[synchronicity]

Along TC80's and WalterBenjamin's lines, there are websites where one can get not only current listing prices for homes for sale within certain school attendance boundaries, but also get lists of sales for last 3 months/6 months/1 year for those school zones. Since TX is a non-disclosure state one can only get last listing price rather than sale price, but that (possibly in combination with current "for sales") could be used to calculate some averages and get some good ideas on school areas and affordability.

Doing that real quick for Carroll Senior seems to show an average (mean, I think, not median) "final list" price for sales over the last 3 months of slightly under 600K, with the "average" house being 4K sq ft, slightly over 4 BRs and slightly under 4 BA's (I know you can't have a "half bedroom", but one gets the idea - mostly 4BRs but a few 5BRs, about 50-50 3.5 BAs to 4BA's)

Believe it or don't, but Arlington Martin HS clocks in at 158K average for about 3.5 BR 2.5 BA at 2,200 sq ft.

Since TC80 mentioned it, Allen HS shows up at 250K on this search as well, for about 4BR 3BA 2,800 sq ft.

Make of all this what you will. I'm sure anyone who is interested can google for sites that have this functionality.

ETA - checked Plano East for fun. Current sale average list is 400K, but last 3 months avg. final list is 260K. Plano West, believe it or don't, is only 345K. However, I'm including Condos and Townhomes in those numbers which are likely pulling them down. If someone only wanted to do single family detached, they could do so.

[jcl_cls02]

Very informative and good to know! Thanks for the data ya'll.

[mSooner]

$375k seemed high for Flower Mound

[jdallas]

great analysis. People with families have to start somewhere when trying to figure out where to look based on budget and this seems to be a good start.