Effect of distance to schooling on home prices

Abstract

This paper uses hedonic analysis of home transactions in the Denver Public School District to estimate the effect of distance to schooling on sales price. This study considers all three levels of public location based schooling: elementary, middle and high school. While most studies examining the relationship between schooling and home price investigate the change in home value based on the quality of schooling, this paper controls for school quality differences and focuses on the value of distance to schools. Results indicate that as distance to schooling increases, home price decreases. Despite the overall inverse relationship, the study finds a congestion effect near all levels of schooling; homes 1,000 feet from a school have a higher price than homes less than 500 feet. In addition, results suggest that homes just inside the cutoff distance for walking to elementary school (1,320 feet) are priced lower than homes just outside this cutoff.