Go West Young Person

Changes to School Assignments Set to Change Property Values

Predicting where home prices will go in the next few years in San Francisco is a parlor game many like to play with a rather obvious answer: more than now.

But one factor that will alter the landscape in the next couple of years will come from a pretty significant (yet fundamental) change by San Francisco’s public schools.

For years, which school kids attended was a contentious, confusing and confounding exercise in frustration where inscrutable factors and oversubscription to top-rated schools was the norm. Apart from certain neighborhoods adding a ’tie-breaker’ to the mix, where a child lived really had no impact on which school they could go to. In other words, even if you lived next to the best school in the City, that proximity wouldn't necessarily help you. That's about to change.

Under the new policy, SFUSD will develop assignment zones and allow families to choose from the elementary schools in the zone they live in. Each zone will include choices of K-5 and K-8 schools, language pathways, and special education programs. While we can’t guarantee that each child will be assigned to their top choice, we can provide families with the knowledge that their child will be assigned to one of the schools in their zone. There will be some very limited exceptions, such as for younger siblings

Source: Changes to Student Assignment Policy | SFUSD

This means the City will join most other school districts and, at least acknowledge, that living close to a school will be given some consideration in school assignment. This will impact home prices for sure. If you need proof, just take a look at what happens on the Peninsula where school assignment and district boundaries skew home prices radically.

The general rule of thumb is that public elementary schools in San Francisco are good, with most of the highly regarded elementary schools being found in the central and southwest parts of the City in MLS Districts 1, 2, 4 and 5 — the Richmond, Sunset, Midtown/Miraloma/Sunnyside and parts of Cole Valley, and the Haight. Take a look at the Great Schools map of top public elementary schools here.