If you’re a public school teacher, you’re going to want to sharpen your proverbial pencil and prepare to jump into the comments section today.

And even if you’re not a teacher, but you’re just really involved in your local community and are passionate about the intersection of neighbourhoods, public schools, and communities, I’m sure you’ll have a thought or two to share.

It should come as no surprise that public schools can affect housing prices in this city.

Just like access to parks and green spaces, or proximity to transit, the local public school will affect buyers’ decisions, and thus will have an impact on home prices.

Whenever I’m working with first-time home buyers, and by that I mean freehold as opposed to condo, I advise them to consider the following:

1. Public transit
2. Access to parks
3. Supporting commercial/retail
4. Public schools

You can choose to put those in any order you want, but these four things are the external considerations; the things you think about aside from the house itself.

Pick a neighbourhood, and we’ll work the example.

Let’s go with Roncesvalles.

1. You might be a bit of a walk from the Bloor subway, depending on where you live in the area, but you could take the Queen streetcar east into the city.  Public transit might get a 6/10 here.
2. Sorauren Avenue Park is nearby, and you’ve got High Park to the west, which is perhaps the best part in all of Toronto.
3. Roncesvalles Avenue is amazing for walkable amenities, and it’s quaint and historic.
4. Garden Avenue Junior Public School is very sought after, and Fern Avenue Junior & Senior is as well.

So does Roncesvalles pass the test?

We could do this all day with just about every neighbourhood in the city, but it’s a highly subjective exercise.

I don’t take public transit, so #1 on the list above isn’t important to me.  In fact, many of my clients tell me that it isn’t important to them, but I still put it on my list of “four essential elements” of a neighbourhood when you’re a first-time freehold buyer.

Then again, some people send their kids to private school, and thus #4 on our list above isn’t important either.

But for the purposes of today’s conversation, we’re going to discuss how important public schools are to the folks who will send their children to public school, since that’s an overwhelming majority of buyers.

First, a story…

Many years ago, I sold a house to a young couple in prime Riverdale.

The house was one block from prestigious Withrow Avenue Junior Public School, in addition to being close to Riverdale Park & Withrow Park, walking distance to the subway, and walking distance to all the amenities that The Danforth has to offer.

Several years later, the couple was splitting up.

The husband reached out to me and said he wanted to start looking for another house in Riverdale, as he would be moving out, and his wife would stay in the existing house with the kids.

But he had a very interesting stipulation, as he said:

“I want to be east of Pape Avenue.”

That was odd, since nobody who buys in Riverdale wants to be east of Pape Avenue.

I mean, no offense to those who are.  I’m just saying that, if given a choice, people would choose to be west.

Why?

Well, because Pape Avenue is the dividing line for school districts.

Here’s where the teachers and public sector folks might take issue with what I’m saying, but I’m not knocking anything or anyone here; I’m merely pointing out facts.

And the fact is: Withrow Avenue Junior Public School is far more sought after than Blake Street Junior Public School.

Pape Avenue Junior Public School is as well.

This is just math, right?

Well, rankings and math.

Have a look at the current rankings for Pape and Blake Street:

Please hear me: I’m not knocking Blake Street.  I’m just pointing out the facts here.

The Fraser Institute publishes school rankings for almost every public school, on a yearly basis.

These rankings are current as of this writing.

You can go https://www.compareschoolrankings.org/ to see for yourself.

So let’s go back to 2009 when my client tells me, “I want to be east of Pape Avenue.”

It completely contradicted everything that every Riverdale buyer had said to me before, but more importantly, it completely contradicted what he and his wife had said five years earlier when we bought their existing home in Riverdale.

But it made perfect sense when my client explained it:

“My kids are already enrolled in Withrow Public School.  I want to be close by, and in the neighbourhood.  But why would I pay a premium to be in the Withrow catchment?”

Exactly.

He ended up purchasing a house east of Pape Avenue, on one of the Wroexters, Dingwalls, or Bains, and paying $600,000 when the same house in the Withrow PS catchment would have cost him over $800,000.

That is the impact that a public school can have on the value of a home.

And ironically, while the conversation today is how a home in a sought-after school catchment can be worth more than a house in a different catchment, the story above is about somebody who used the opposite to their advantage.

Earlier this month, I read this article in the Globe & Mail:

“Parents Are Paying A Premium To Live Near Top-Rated Schools.  Here’s What It’s Costing Them”
The Globe & Mail
July 8th, 2026

From the article:

Ten years ago, Toronto realtor Sean Mayers says, homebuyers often opened discussions by asking about commute times.

“Now, the first question they ask me is, ‘What’s the school like?’”

Mr. Mayers has watched parents and would-be parents increasingly pay more for smaller, older homes in their desired school catchment. “Same bricks, same square footage, but one side of an invisible line is worth six figures more.”

Ilan Portnoi, who also sells homes in Toronto, said he’s started noticing homebuyers stretching their dollar even further and earlier in life to secure housing in a well-rated district.

“They’re often going to the very max of their budget,” he said – sometimes before even having children. “People in the last few years are getting stuck, so clients who don’t even have kids yet ask a lot more questions about the schools.”

I would argue that this phenomenon isn’t new, and that even ten years ago, I was still being asked about public schools, but the point is made here.

Many of today’s home-buyers are living on the Fraser Institute website, and this has been the case for quite some time.

The article above tries to put some data to the theory.

From the article:

The Globe and Mail analyzed data from real estate company HouseSigma and Fraser ratings, and found that living near the 30 top-rated public schools in the Greater Toronto Area commands a median premium of roughly $60,000 to $70,000, or the equivalent of about 5 per cent to 7 per cent for detached homes and 4 per cent to 6 per cent for attached homes. In B.C., this premium can be even higher, reaching up to a median premium of about 10.5 per cent.

Though top-scoring public schools in the GTA aren’t in the priciest parts of central Toronto – instead clustering predominantly in the Markham and Richmond Hill suburbs – the price tags of homes in those areas consistently exceed the municipal median.

Eleven of the 20 top-ranked neighbourhoods for school scores are situated in Markham. Virtually all of them command a significant premium over the northeast Toronto suburb’soverall municipal median price of $1.5-million for detached homes and $1.04-million for attached homes, going up as much as 10 per cent for an attachedhome in Middlefield and often even higher– for example, in the newer, family-oriented Victoria Manor-Jennings Gate neighbourhood.

Yeah, cool story and all, but as a self-described stats nerd, I don’t think you can put figures to the correlation between sought-after public schools and home prices.  We’d love to, but then there’s this from the article:

Notably, some of the most expensive real estate markets in central Toronto and North York carry middling-to-low school scores.

Sure, and that’s because there are some very expensive areas where all the kids go to private school, and where the local public school isn’t so “local.”

I find that the correlation between home prices and sought-after public schools is better explained through stories.

Yes, stories!

Here’s one…

More than a decade ago, I received an email from a man who said he wanted to buy an investment property in Leaside.

That didn’t come as a surprise, but what did come as a surprise was the fact that he was living in Scarborough in a house that was worth slightly more than what a condo in Leaside would cost.

He targeted the buildings at the end of Vanderhoof Avenue, and so I sent him links to a few different properties: 2-bedroom units, 1-bedroom-plus-den units, and 1-bedroom units.

I told him that the best return would come on a small 1-bedroom unit, the worst return would be on 1-plus-den models, and that 2-bedroom units would be pricey and would appreciate at a lower rate than the 1-bedrooms.

He responded, “Are there any bachelor units available?”

There weren’t any for sale at the time, but he said, “I want the cheapest unit I can possibly find.  I’m patient.  So long as I can close by summer, I’m fine to wait.”

And so we did.

It took a couple of months, but eventually, a small, junior-one-bedroom hit the market, and I took him to see it.

He was in and out of the unit so fast, I would have sworn he was an experienced investor.

But as he explained, he knew “absolutely nothing” about condos, and “even less” about condominium investing.

So I asked him, point blank, “What’s your interest here?”

That’s when he floored me:

“I’m buying the public school catchment.”

His daughter was 5-years-old, and as he explained, “My wife and I are only going to have one child.”

But he continued, “We want the best for her, and we want to send her to a good school.”

The feeder school for this particular condominium on Brian Peck Crescent was Northlea P.S.

That’s in Leaside, for those who aren’t aware.

It’s also one of the best-ranked JK-8 schools you’ll find in the central core, and is home to the prestigious French Immersion program.

He told me, “The schools in our area are terrible.  English is very poor.  They teach down to the kids at the bottom.  I can’t afford to send my daughter to a private school, but I can afford to make a down payment on this condo, use the address, and send her to Northlea Public School, which is like sending her to private school for me.”

And that’s exactly what he did.

He purchased a condo for $240,000, made a 20% down payment of $48,000, and we rented the condo out.

The unit was essentially cash flow neutral, give or take, but that didn’t matter to him.

For the out-of-pocket cost of a few thousand dollars in land transfer tax, he sent his daughter to Northlea Public School from Grade One onward.  She then attended Leaside High School and is now heading to university.

Interestingly, the boundaries seem to have changed, as this building now falls into the Bessborough Public School catchment.  But it’s important to note that somebody could still conceivably purchase a condo on Vanderhoof Avenue, Brian Peck Crescent, or Aerodrome Crescent, and use the address to send their children to a top school.

As I write this post, I’m currently working with another long-time client to help them with a very similar objective.

Their daughter attended a school from JK through Grade-8, based on a previous address at which they were living.  But while 99% of the kids graduating Grade-8 at this school are going to one particular high school, their daughter, for some reason, isn’t being grandfathered in.

Forgive me for not knowing the exact ins and outs of the public school catchment system, but she was told by the school admin that the catchment “resets” when the kids enter high school.

The school that all the other kids are going to is very sought-after and very highly-ranked.

The school that my client’s daughter is being forced to attend is the exact opposite.

She has now tasked me with finding a very small condo that she and her husband can purchase so they can use the address to qualify her daughter to attend the high school of their choosing.

Sound familiar?

Now, the two situations described above deal with individuals purchasing an investment property so they can use the address to qualify their kids for a better school.

But how important is the public school catchment to those buyers looking for a home within a neighbourhood, where their children will attend school?

Crucial.

In fact, I would say it’s the top criteria for most of my freehold buyers with children, or with children on the way.

Last year, I was showing a house in Playter Estates which seemed to check all the boxes for my clients.

But there was one problem: the house was the FIRST property outside the catchment area.

No word of a lie.

Say this house was 198 Fake Street, well, the catchment for Jackman Public School ended at 196 Fake Street.

It was literally one house removed from an imaginary boundary that had a huge impact on desirability, and thus a huge impact on price.

My clients decided to pass on this house, and I suspect many other folks did as well for the very same reason.

Now, let me leave you with one final nugget of information as far as this subject goes.

Do you want to know who is more interested in public school catchments, as it pertains to their housing search, than any other group I’ve ever met?

Americans.

I work with a lot of transplants and relocations, and our friends south of the border are always asking about the public schools.

Rankings, number of students, demographics, outdoor fields and amenities, walkability, and they always want to know if there’s a yellow school bus that picks kids up and drops them off.  That’s very American, wouldn’t you say?

Surprisingly, most of these folks do not end up sending their kids to private school, even the very wealthy ones.  I don’t know if it’s just how they were raised, or what they’re used to back home, but it seems that they love a good public school!

So if you’re reading this blog today because you randomly Googled something to do with “house prices” and “public schools,” give yourself credit because it means you already knew, deep down, that there’s a huge correlation.

And if you’re reading this today, aging like a fine wine, having already sent multiple children through their twenty-something years of schooling, just be happy that this is something you’ll never have to deal with again…