I was having a chat with a property investor the other day, when he asked if schools affected the Mid-Somerset property market in terms of demand from tenants and buyers. As I have been explaining to my clients for some years now a good school creates good demand and good demand affects rentability, rental yield, saleability and capital growth.

I know from the many people who contact me that most people cite location as their key factor. I also know that there is a close correlation between the high demand areas of Mid-Somerset and the proximity to a good primary school. Many tenants are willing to increase their budget quite significantly, whilst others would consider downgrading their property requirements, to be close to a good primary school.

Those of you who regularly read my blog will know I like to apply some degree of science to my analyses of the property market and that I love a challenge so I decided to take a look at the data to see if it reflects my experience on the ground. It is only through research and analysis of data can I be confident I will be giving investors the very best advice.

I started by looking at the performance of the 60 primary schools nearest my office to give me a working dataset. 4 schools stood out:

• Horrington Primary School
• Meare Village Primary School
• Walton Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School
• West Pennard Church of England Primary School

All 4 schools have impressive results – in Walton 95% of pupils achieved a level 4 in Maths and English while in nearby West Pennard 39% of pupils achieved level 5 in Maths and English.

Looking at the increase in price paid for property within a 1 mile radius of these schools over the last 10 years reveals some interesting results. The average increase in price paid for property within a 1 mile radius of each of the schools was 50.84%.

Compare this with the average increase in price paid for property in the postal districts in which these schools are located over the same period which was just 15% and we can see the data does indeed reflect my assumptions.

That means that people who own property within 1 mile of these good schools have seen the values of their properties rise by an order of magnitude more than three times those of property in their wider postal districts.

What about secondary schools?

Whilst a good primary school significantly contributes more to property prices, the same can’t be said for secondary schools. There are two reasons for this, firstly, as secondary schools are much larger, so their catchment areas are correspondingly much larger, meaning parents don’t need to live so close to the school. The much larger catchment area is subject to lots of other variables that could affect property prices.

Secondly, in the UK, whilst the difference between the top 25% and bottom 25% of secondary schools is not insignificant, in the primary school sector, the difference between the top 25% and bottom 25%, according to the London School of Economics, is considerably more.

If you are thinking of investing in property in Mid-Somerset make sure you do your research and get expert advice, something I am always willing to help with.

About Tom Morgan

Founder of Jungle Property the multi award-winning letting agent based in Glastonbury, Somerset. I am passionate about property and Glastonbury and about providing the very best advice to anyone who wants the best return on a buy-to-let property investment. For an open and brutally honest opinion on anything in the Glastonbury property market please contact me via tom.morgan@jungleproperty.co.uk

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