Quality Education on Sale

One of Trulia’s goals is to provide the user with the best search experience possible. An important aspect of this search experience is the information that supplements our listings, such as data on school districts as well as local real estate market indicators. Our recently released advanced search functionality allows the user to search for properties within specific school districts or neighborhoods, and our California real estate guides link users to market trends and school information for every city in the state (available for all of our live states). The following analysis of school district value is just one example of the many types of stories that our data can tell you. As our coverage continues to grow, our helpful home-finding information will grow with it.

Finding a home within a good school district is a priority for home-buyers with school-aged children (see HouseValues article). In an anaylsis of greater Los Angeles area schools, we found that to get one of the best educations for your child, you don’t necessarily have to spend the most money on a house. Within the top school districts in the LA area, average housing prices vary by more than $800,000 and $600/square foot. Take a look at the 5 most expensive and 5 cheapest places to get a great education in the Los Angeles area.

The Most Expensive

The Best Values

*API = Academic Performance Index. 2005 Average for Unified districts in CA = 694

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood…

Finding the right neighborhood is one of the most important aspects of a home search, and through their thousands of visits and searches every day, Trulia users are telling us which neighborhoods are most popular in the eyes of a prospective buyer. For a closer look at these hot neighborhoods, we’ve compared real estate market metrics to find out what these areas have in common. And for those of you considering that big move, we can tell you just how far your dollar will go in the most popular neighborhoods in the U.S.

So what do these results tell us? Well, it’s clear that our users have expensive taste. The home prices in the most popular neighborhoods were between 25% and 175% above average sales prices for those cities. And despite accounting for only a few percent of home sales, these neighborhoods are drawing up to 17% of the Trulia traffic in these cities. Whether looking to buy or dreaming of buying, our Trulia users are clearly searching in the nice parts of town.