Schools and Homebuying

Speaker 1: [0:00] Hello, hello, and welcome to another edition of the Awesome in Seattle podcast. This is Christian Nossum of the Awesome Nossum Group at Wilson Realty, and today we are talking all about schools. It is about that time of year for kids to go back to school, so we decided to dedicate this episode on how to navigate schools when looking for a house. So we're gonna discuss the value of knowing what school boundaries a property is in, and hopefully share some insight that may help put this factor into perspective. Uh, we're also gonna explore a few of the schools in the Seattle public school district, and a few different types, um, option schools and so forth. Uh, but first, before we get at all into that, let's say hi to the amazing agents at the awesome Nossum Group. First up, we have the one, the only, the data guru, Mr. Jason Saldarriaga.

Speaker 2: [0:48] Hello.

Speaker 1: [0:50] And we also have the dog whisperer, Mr. Les Cutting.

Speaker 3: [0:55] Woof, woof, woof.

Speaker 1: [0:58] And the Seattle native- Roof? Roof? Reid Watson.

Speaker 4: [1:02] That's me.

Speaker 1: [1:04] All right, so today we're gonna be shedding some light on how important school boundaries are, or maybe not, when shopping for a home. This is obviously important to buyers with kids, but it can also be relevant for home buyers without kids. But maybe it's not as important as you might think, so that's what we're gonna kind of get into today. The clients who don't have kids or don't have them yet often ask if they should be worried about what school boundary a property falls in, and I tell them to do some research, but really don't fixate too much on the school boundary. Uh, if you don't have kids yet, I wouldn't worry about it too much, and the reason why is because most people move, on average, every five to seven years. So if you don't have any kids yet, but you're thinking about it, it's likely that you will most likely move before your child even gets to school. It's probably better to not base your home buying decision on a school boundary. Uh, let's get into this a little bit more. Jason, what advice would you give potential buyers that don't have kids yet when considering schools and their boundaries?

Speaker 2: [2:03] Uh, yeah, when this topic comes up, I usually start by getting an understanding of the buyer's goals, you know? First off, how long do they see themselves in this home that they're looking for? At the end of the day, school boundaries may not need to be a factor at all for them personally, and so that's a good starting point. And then buyers, regardless of their familial status, all, you know, their specifics, they all wanna know, or many wanna know, do school boundaries affect property values? The reality of this is it's not necessarily black and white or clear-cut at the end of the day. Some home buyers value living in a good school district or boundary higher than others would, particularly those with children who are in school or expecting children to be in school shortly. So it can seem that owning property in an area with highly rated schools, quote, unquote, highly rated schools, would increase the market value of a home. But honestly, the, the market is very complex, and even more importantly than complex, it's diverse. So at the end of the day, putting a, a dollar value on a particular school district or what have you, it just can be mild- wildly misleading or just simply false at the end of the day. That said, it's certainly not a bad idea to consider the school boundary while looking at homes, but make sure to just weigh that based on more your current and future needs than just trying to play that angle of the market. Because at the end of the day, you could be limiting yourself to other opportunities without realizing it. There are many ways to play the market, so just keep that in mind. Keep an open mind and an open eye out for opportunities. And, uh, I, I do think it's kind of funny, just to illustrate the opposite line of thought, funny enough, I've, I've actually had a lot of clients not only completely disregard school districts, but actively not want to be near schools specifically. Just recently I had a, a client who had a dog, a, a rescue dog- Um, and this poor dog, great dog, but it had pretty severe socialization, um, opportunities, let's say. That's a nice way of putting it. And, uh, we looked at a really nice home that checked off a lot of my client's boxes, but at the end of the day they just couldn't move forward on it because of its proximity to a school. They were very concerned, rightfully so, about the dog's aggression around, uh, noise and, and, uh, people they don't know, and not having some kind of separation would be problematic for the dog, and potentially a safety hazard for everyone involved. So there's two sides, uh, two lines of thought here, that's for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1: [4:48] Yep. It's definitely a, a factor that can go both ways, for sure. Um, it could definitely be a nuisance being near a school if, you know, you gotta pay attention to the traffic patterns, you know. When are the drop-off and pickup times? What streets do the parents or caregivers go down and park at when they're picking up the kids from school or dropping them off in the morning? Not just with elementary school or middle school or high schools, but colleges as well. This is something to really pay attention to. If you're near a, a school or, uh, especially a high school when kids start driving or a college where, you know, they're, they don't wanna pay for parking on the school or maybe they're not even allowed to park at school, and so they're parking all up and down the street, and that can change really the feel of the neighborhood. So that's something to definitely keep in mind. Before we get into offering some guidance to home buyers with kids, I wanna take a second to point out that we are in this episode focusing on the Seattle School District, and the reason why is because we gotta s- focus it somehow. Um, generally when we talk stats and other things, we s- focus Seattle specific. That doesn't mean that we don't work in other areas outside of Seattle. We gotta, we gotta narrow it down somehow, so we decided to narrow down to the Seattle Public School District for this episode, but there are a lot of other good school districts outside the city limits, such as Shoreline, Northshore, Lake Washington. I mean, there's tons of good school districts in the area. So if you do have questions about navigating those school districts, please do not hesitate to reach out. We're more than happy to assist you any way that we can. So now let's get into, uh, how to kinda think about this when you do have kids. Reed, how can I find out ratings of schools, and how does all that work?

Speaker 4: [6:38] So n- there are a lot of great websites that list local school ratings. I would suggest greatschools.org, schooldiggers.com, and niche.com, N-I-C-H-E.com. Niche

Speaker 3: [6:53] Niche, niche.

Speaker 4: [6:56] Whichever you prefer. So an attendance area school is the school that child will automatically be accepted into based on where you live. As long as you live in the attendance area and your school offers the appropriate services for your child, you can enroll your child in your attendance area school based solely on your address. So that's kind of the most straightforward way to go.

Speaker 1: [7:21] Yeah. Knowing what you're looking for in a school is important as well. Um, one, one way to get a feel, this is just a tip that I've given past clients, one way to get a feel of really what is the vibe of the school, how, how does it work, how does it feel, and I don't know how to describe it other than that. But one way to do this is after school, if you have a kid, bring them to the school playground after school gets out and just witness. Let the kid play with other kids at the school, even though they might not be the same age, and just get a feel for that. That's just a, a, a nice little test to, uh, to, to try out an area.

Speaker 3: [7:58] And one thing, I'm just gonna jump in here. A lot of schools in the summertime, they have open houses too. Um, see when those- Mm-hmm … are. You can go check them out and basically it's, it's a open house and you c- it gives prospective students that may be moving to the area a chance to see what that school has to offer, and you can get a feel, like Christian says, for the school, the area, the teachers, the program the schools has to offer. So that's another great way.

Speaker 4: [8:23] Yeah. That's a great point. I think that those open houses are generally really cool. You can see what types of programs they have as well.

Speaker 1: [8:30] Mm-hmm. Uh, one thing I wanna point out too is that Seattle offers something they call option schools. Option schools have specific programs or methods of education, and there are some really good options in Seattle. Les, how is enrolling a child in an option school different from enrolling in an attendance area school? Um-

Speaker 2: [8:47] Is it an option? Is it an option? Is it forced on you? No. I like names that are very clear, you know? Yeah. It's, it's not like some marketing term, like- Exactly … you know? Yeah.

Speaker 3: [9:00] Well, option schools fall into geographic priority areas, AKA a geo zone. If you live in a geo zone, which is different from the attendance zone area, it's important to understand that living in a geo zone doesn't necessarily guarantee your child will be accepted into an option school. Uh, sometimes acceptance for an option school is based on a lottery system, so it could be luck and chance. If you're interested in exploring option schools, visit the Seattle Schools website at seattleschools.org. When applying for an option school, it's important to know the specific requirements for enrollment well in advance.

Speaker 1: [9:36] Yeah, and that's a crucial point. Before you get your heart set on a child attending an option school, you really need to know what is required to apply. Um, and don't forget to pay attention to the deadlines, because they can be very strict sometimes. So, all right. Let's put back on my buyer hat. Let's say that I've reviewed the local schools and their ratings. Uh, now I have a few schools in mind. Uh, how can I make sure I'm looking at homes in the right school zones, Jason?

Speaker 2: [10:04] It's a great question. My first, uh, suggestion is to consider all of this with the expectation that you have for the home you're looking at, right? So how long do you plan to live in this home? I already kind of touched upon this previously in this episode, but just that's kind of important. And then with that under consideration, you can plan accordingly. If you have a child who's in elementary school or, you know, of that age, don't focus necessarily solely on elementary school. If you're looking for a home to work the long term, um, it would probably, it would probably be smart for you to consider middle and high schools if that was the case, and the opposite can be true as well. You know, at the Awesome Nossum Group, we do have tons of tools at our disposal that can help buyers with their home search. A lot of buyers have very particular areas that they're looking for, whether or not that's school zone-based or school boundary-based or not, a lot of times it's location in one way or another, and so we can help buyers focus their energies in many ways. At the end of the day, don't assume the school, I think this is really important, the school that you see on the property listing, on the MLS, or on Zillow, what have you, don't assume that that's 100% correct, you know. In my experience, I think we've all seen this, they can, um, it can be inaccurate. I do recommend verifying the school boundary with the address of the property, or ask your agent to. Um, a lot of times when, just a little inside baseball… Oh my gosh, I made a sport reference. What

Speaker 1: [11:41] the heck?

Speaker 2: [11:42] Or no, it's in- is it inside baseball or insider baseball?

Speaker 1: [11:45] No, you said it right the first time.

Speaker 2: [11:46] Oh, darn it. So I had it right, and then I had to, like, fool my brain. Double-check yourself. Yeah. Well, uh,

Speaker 3: [11:52] a little inside baseball. Wow, today's gonna be a good day.

Speaker 2: [11:58] Uh- Us agents, when we put a listing on the MLS, there's ways to import the data, and, uh, quite frankly, even if we're not importing the data, we just have wrong information for some of the stuff. And so it's not uncommon for an agent to just click a button and have it imported from a previous listing or whatnot have… or what have you. Um, school boundaries can change, or it could have been wrong five or 10 years ago at w- the last time it was listed, and then the listing you're looking at could be wrong. So just keep that in mind. Um, and to do so, to check those boundaries, Google's your friend. Pretty much every school district is gonna have a website that has a pretty easy to find boundary map or system that you can potentially even put an address in, and it'll shoot out w- what schools it, that address feeds to.

Speaker 1: [12:51] So yeah, it really is true, and as we all know, you can't trust everything that you read online, so going straight to the source, the actual school district's website, is always going to be your best bet to get accurate information. And I know for a fact Seattle Public Schools, they do have the school boundary address lookup tool, and you can see exactly which schools and potentially geo zone schools you could, or your home, or the home could qualify for. So I know when my oldest, who's now 10, but when she was only four, when we were looking for a new house, my wife and I researched a lot of different schools. And we toured a few of the top few that we were interested in And then we really created a home search strategy around these different schools, and at that point, we just kind of waited for a house that met all our criteria, um, or the majority of our criteria, and bought that. And then we, at that point, I mean, that's really all you can do. We did our research ahead of time, narrowed down our areas, narrowed down the schools, and found a house that met, met that. Um, and we kind of lucked out. We love our neighborhood, and we thankfully got in, moved in right before our child started kindergarten. But that isn't always possible. So Reid, let's go over that. What if someone buys a new home and needs to move mid-school year? How does that work?

Speaker 4: [14:15] Good news on that front. So if you buy a new home and are gonna move there in the middle of the school year, your child generally won't have to switch schools until the next school year. So that's great. Another thing to be aware of is that school maps do change some- They give prior warning about upcoming rezonings, and Lincoln High School is a great example of a new school that has opened in the Wallingford area. They reopened it because Roosevelt and Ballard High Schools were experiencing a ton of overcrowding. And so Lincoln has been reopened, and that's gonna alleviate some of the pressure on the surrounding schools. So high schoolers who live in Fremont will no longer go to Ballard High School. They will go to Lincoln. They are starting off, however, with a pretty small class size to reduce having to move kids who are in the middle of high school to another school, like, during their junior or senior year, which is great. But eventually it will become the school for Wallingford and Fremont

Speaker 1: [15:23] Good points, Reid. Um, I really think they do speak to what I see as a good approach for considering school boundaries when looking for a house. Yeah. Obviously, we encourage our clients to find a balance between going after a school they like and finding a home that's a good fit for them. Sacrificing one for the other is sometimes not the best strategy. So, uh, Les, what are your final thoughts on this topic? I mean, your, your fiance is a teacher. You kinda got the inside scoop on this stuff, the inside baseball scoop on this stuff.

Speaker 3: [15:52] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: [15:53] Um, what are some things that you try and tell clients with or without kids that are looking for a home and, and looking at school boundaries?

Speaker 3: [16:00] Well, if they have kids, I'd say don't get too attached to the idea of one specific school. Explore a few different schools, um, including option schools. Open up your… It, it's definitely gonna open up your home search a little bit more. You know, every school has different programs. For example, uh, my fiance, she teaches sensory kindergarten through third grade, and at the time, her school w- and was the only school that offered that program in the district, and they have since expanded in the past couple years or so. Uh, if a client doesn't have children, I'd suggest that they put the school zone factor into perspective by reiterating some of what we discussed in this podcast. So whenever you're thinking about school zones, come back to this podcast, listen to what we have to say, and really consider all the information that we talked about. So to recap, selecting the right home in the right school zone can be very stressful for home buyers with or without children, but it doesn't have to be. Again, refer back to this podcast. A little research goes a long way. Ask the data guru. Empowering yourself throughout the school searching and home buying process by utilizing available resources, such as people who've gone through the process before, school staff, and knowledgeable real estate agents, such as ourselves, the Awesome Nossum Group. Just ask us. We have tons of information. Ask me. I'm marrying a teacher, so As I'm

Speaker 1: [17:21] Christian. Ask me, I have three kids.

Speaker 3: [17:23] There you go.

Speaker 1: [17:24] All right, well-

Speaker 4: [17:25] Ask me, I went to all these schools.

Speaker 1: [17:27] Exactly. She did.

Speaker 3: [17:30] She went to- Ask Jason … every public school in Seattle? Jason has the data.

Speaker 1: [17:31] Every single

Speaker 4: [17:32] one. Every single one.

Speaker 3: [17:34] And Jason has the data to back it all up.

Speaker 1: [17:36] Exactly. And that's why we are a good team, 'cause we have varying degrees of, uh, knowledge and background, so. Great work, team. Uh, hopefully a lot of people got a lot out of this episode. There was a lot of info shared, and I hope that kinda helped to clarify kinda the importance, and maybe not a- as big of an important factor in the home buying search. Schools, schools can definitely pay a, play a part, but they don't have to play the biggest role. So, uh, for anyone listening, if you would like one of us here at the Awesome Nossum Group to create a home search for you, create a home search strategy that considers school boundaries so you don't have to rely on what you read online, just reach out. We're here to help. We love what we do. We'd love to help you come up with that strategy, and really make sure that you have the accurate data that you need to search for the schools that you have narrowed your search down to. So, thanks for joining us, and we wish all you teachers, parents, students, and staff a safe and successful school year. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.