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School Information

School information is a sticky wicket for a real estate agent. Lots of people looking at homes want to know if the schools in a particular area are good or bad, or where to find the best schools, or if a school has a particular program. It only makes sense. Those are all good questions. Why is that an issue for real estate agents?

Redlining, Steering, and other Real Estate Laws

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there were real estate industry folks that engaged in a practice called redlining. What is redlining? Telling people they had to live in, or only offering loans if buyers looked in certain areas or neighborhoods based on race, ethnicity, religion, etc. It's closely related to steering, when a real estate agent directs or only shows his or her clients homes in a particular area based on race, ethnicity, religion or any one of the other classes protected by Fair Housing Laws.

What do schools have to do with Fair Housing Laws? Well, if an agent makes a statement that a particular school is superior to another school, how do we know if they are using one of the protected Fair Housing classes as part of their determination? Even it they are not, could it be construed that they are?

Subjective Subject Matter

Another issue with a real estate agent telling a client about schools is that everyone had a different idea of what "good schools" are. To one buyer, one of the most important criteria might be existence of a talented and gifted program, or an abundance of extra curricular activities, or a great music program, fantastic standardized test scores, or a low teacher student ratio. Understandably, every parent has different ideas about what programs are most important for their child.

Non-Personal Experience

We, as real estate agents, often don't have personal experience with every school district in which a home buyer is considering homes. That would leave us to rely on hearsay and the opinions of others with regard to some of the questions we might be asked.

We Can Share Data

We can, however, share data that might make your decision making process easier. For example, say you've narrowed it down to Lake Washington Schools and Northshore schools and want to know where there's a higher average sales price. We can do that!

So What Do Home Buyers Do?

We understand that this may be frustrating to potential home buyers, particularly those that are relocating in from another state or far enough away that they might not have any idea about the school district. Here are our recommendations:

• Check out one of the multitude of school rating websites. We have a section here on our website with a list of a few school ranking websites. You can see "Report Card" information from Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction here.
  
• Make a personal visit to, or at least make direct contact with, the schools on your "short list". Most schools have information prepared to give to families that are considering moving into the school district. An in-person visit can give you an idea about their facilities, administration and staff. We can help you find the contact number of the appropriate department.
  
• Ask around. Even if you're moving in from out of state, you should be able to get an opinion on schools from parents that have children in the district. When you're touring the area, ask people you run into in stores, in a park, etc. Most parents are happy to give you their two cents about the district - good or bad.
  
• If you have it narrowed down to a few potential areas and are interested in seeing sales data like average sales prices, days on the market, style of home, etc. please let us know since we're happy to pull the research!
  

Once you decide what school district, or school districts, are right for you and your family, let us know. We can run home searches by school district.