Kane Neighborhood Among ’10 Most Affordable With Best Schools’ in U.S.

kanecountyconnects / December 5, 2014 / Comments Off / Kane County, Property Values, Schools, Taxpayers

The fourth-most affordable neighborhood with the best schools in the U.S. is right here in Kane County.

According to an article by By Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander E.M. Hess on the 24/7 Wall Street website, Homestead Elementary School in Aurora is No. 4 on the list of 10 Most Affordable Neighborhoods With the Best Schools. Homestead Elementary is part of Oswego School District 308.

Other neighborhoods with low home prices and excellent schools were in Hebron, KY, Utica, NY, Rush, NY, Rochester, NY (twice) and Lakeview, NY. The top three neighborhoods were in St. Petersburg, FL, Oklahoma City, OK, and Trenton, NJ.

The purpose of the exercise was to identify places that had affordable homes, great schools and a quality of life that allowed young parents to sock away some money for the future.

he authors said the the No. 1 factor for many people searching for a home is the quality of the schools. But good-quality schools often coincide with high housing prices, so what do you do to find a neighborhood that’s both affordable and has great schools?

The 24/7 Wallstreet folks started by looking at housing market data firm RealtyTrac. Some of the neighborhoods — like the St. Petersburg, FL, neighborhood near Lakeview Fundamental Elementary — had very inexpensive housing, with homes averaging under $100,000 sales price. The average price of a home in St. Petersburg was $56,153.

But the authors also were considering how much of a chunk school taxes took out of residents’ pocketbooks, based on the average household income. The house payment as percentage of household income ratio for Trenton Elementary School, for example, was 9.1 percent.

The final piece of the puzzle was how good the school was, measured by how far school students tested above above the state average. According to Illinois report cards, 83.3 percent of Homestead Elementary School students met or exceeded standards across all sections of the Illinois Standard Achievement test. According to the article, the school’s students scored 35 percent above the state average.

“An average priced home in Aurora, Illinois, cost less than 12 percent of the area’s household median income. While the average price over the 12 months prior to this October was $172,723 — one of the higher figures — a typical household in the area earns an estimated $109,717, well more than the vast majority of Americans. Like most areas with both affordable housing and good schools, Homestead Elementary’s local community had one of the lowest poverty rates in the country between 2008 and 2012, at just 3.4 percent,” the article said.