Top Monash school zones stacking value on home prices

Houses in sought-after school zones had A+ price growth in the past decade, with huge demand from families in Melbourne’s east.

Despite a recent stumble in the property market, prices in the Glen Waverley Secondary College zone have continued to soar at the top of the class.

The median two-bedroom-plus house price in the highly coveted boundary reached $1.617 million last year, well above the suburb’s general median of $1.291 million, according to new data from the Real Estate Institute of Victoria.

The zone has more than doubled in price since 2009, when the median price was just $760,000.

Its 113 per cent growth compares to 89 per cent in the suburb generally.

Houses in the Mt Waverley Secondary College zone have also outperformed Mt Waverley overall, growing 94 per cent compared to 91 per cent.

However, the $1.3 million median price for the zone is slightly below the suburb’s $1.315 million median.

Other strong performing schools were East Doncaster Secondary College and Vermont Secondary College.

The median price in the East Doncaster zone reached $1.3 million last year, above Doncaster East’s median of $1,220,500, while Vermont’s catchment zone median hit $1.05 million, above the suburb median of $980,000.

REIV chief executive Gil King said the premium in Glen Waverley showed how prized some school zones were.

“These huge increases are not surprising given strong demand from families willing to pay extra to get into the highly sought-after school zones,” he said.

“School zones are one of the main factors that families with young children consider when looking to buy a home — particularly those who plan to send their children to a public school.”

Hocking Stuart director Travis Milton said demand was high for a quality secondary education at public school rates.

“The beauty is you’re paying public school prices but you’ve got a good school,” Mr Milton said.

“Instead of paying $20K a year at Xavier or somewhere, you can pay public school prices and you’ve got that money for other things.”

Glen Waverley was one of the top performing state schools in the 2018 VCE, with a median study score of 33, slightly above the other three government schools.

The state government is developing a website to make it easier for families to find out which zones they are in, Mr King said.

Mr King said it would “enable parents to easily research school zones, as well as changes to some boundaries, which will have major implications for Melbourne’s property market”.

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