Schools Power Real Estate Demand

According to statistics, 80%+ people consider the quality of local school districts their number one concern when looking at residential home locations. 

And some of these people don't even have kids. When an area boasts an excellent school system, the benefits of that system really bump up housing values. Housing prices don't fall as badly during a downturn, and they skyrocket back up quickly during an upturn. Buyers considering investment homes use schools as the most reliable criteria for determining where to build or buy. In places like Cupertino, where there's plenty of land available, developers bring properties which in turn bring children. These kids flood the school systems, and developers are encouraged to "give back" to the schools so they have ample resources to accommodate the influx of kids. 

This creates a mutually beneficial cycle---good schools up land value, which brings developers, who help finance schools, which creates better schools, and so on. 

Good schools are also at the core of a community's civic pride and sense of prestige. Think of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan, or Princeton and the town of Princeton, New Jersey. Think of Palo Alto and Stanford.  And it goes a lot farther than colleges. Communities with nationally ranked public high schools and access to first-rate private schools are just as proud--and their houses are worth more. Living in a community where people are proud of their schools is attractive for buyers and young families looking for a place to raise their kids. 

The California Department of Education awards the California Distinguished Schools award to "exemplary and inspiring" schools across the state. Only 5% of schools achieve this title, which lasts for four years and is a pretty iron-clad guarantee of a school's quality and respectability. 

In 2007, twenty-one Silicon Valley schools (11 from San Mateo County and 10 from Santa Clara County) were awarded this distinction. 

Three of these schools are in the Fremont Union High School District (South Bay) which includes Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Saratoga, and San Jose. 2007 marked the third time Cupertino High has won the CDS award. Three more are in the Sequoia Union High School District (Peninsula), which serves Atherton, Belmont, East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Carlos and Woodside. The Campbell Union High School District had two winners, as did the San Mateo Union School District.