House-buyers should expect to pay a premium of around 40% if they want to live close to one of Altrincham’s renowned grammar schools.
That’s one of the findings from a new piece of research carried out by property company Savills.
It discovered that the cost of homes near to the best performing schools in the country can be significantly higher than in other areas – see the full map below.
And it emphasises how the best schools are now often to be found in affluent areas.
In the case of St Ambrose College in Hale Barns, the premium when compared to average prices in Trafford is 41.3%.
See a breakdown of the research findings below:
| School | No of pupils at Key Stage 4 | Average point score per pupil | Average price in the postcode district | Proportion of the LEA value (100% = no premium) | Percentile of performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Altrincham Grammar for Girls | 198 | 500.5 | £338,927 | 136.3% | 96% |
| Altrincham Grammar for Boys | 215 | 650.1 | £338,927 | 136.3% | 100% |
| Loreto Grammar | 153 | 532.7 | £338,927 | 136.3% | 97% |
| St Ambrose College | 156 | 470.8 | £351,279 | 141.3% | 94 |
For Altrincham Grammar School – both the Girls and Boys schools – and Loreto Grammar, the premium is 36.3%.
That’s above the house price premium around some of the top 10 grammar schools in the country. For Langley Grammar School in Berkshire, it’s 31.7%, for St Olave’s and St Saviour’s Grammar in Orpington it’s 14.1% – while you’ll actually pay 8% under the average value to live close to Colchester Royal Grammar.
Lucian Cook, director of residential research at Savills, said the results gave “credibility to the school premium that those living in relevant school catchment areas so often refer to”.
He added: “There is a bit of a chicken and an egg situation of where you have to ask whether affluent families cluster around a high performing school, or are schools high performing because of the families who live nearby.”
Search the map yourself: Each dot represents a school, with the darker coloured dots representing better performing schools and the size of the dot showing the ‘house price premium’ around that school.
