Best School Districts to Buy an Affordable Home – 2019 Edition

Denton ISD named #3 of the Best School Districts to Buy an Affordable Home by Smartasset.com

High-performing public schools and robust public education spending are often correlated with high home values. According to a 2002 report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), “Using Market Valuation to Assess Public School Spending,” every dollar spent on public schools in a community increases home values by $20. While the three factors – school performance, school expenditures and home values – are generally intertwined, there is some variance. As a result of inefficient spending, for example, school expenditures may not necessarily imply better school performance and student outcomes. Similarly, the performance of public schools may not be reflected in the residential housing market, according to the NBER, creating an opportunity for people with school-aged children to buy an affordable home within a great school district.

In this study, we uncovered the best school districts in which to buy an affordable home. To do this, we used 2016-2017 school year data from the National Center for Education Statistics and the Department of Education EDFacts along with the Census Bureau’s 2017 1-year American Community Survey. In order to account for housing affordability in each district, we filtered out school districts in counties where the median home value was four times the median household income. For details on our data sources and how we put all the information together to create our final rankings, check out the Data and Methodology section below.

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