To think buying into a catchment area is false economy?

[Southwest22]

South West London, after some years of fertility treatments earlier this year we finally had our little one. As a result, we have been looking to buy a 3/4 bed terraced house, offered, lost to more aggressive buyers, saw prices continue to go up in 4 different catchment areas with very performing schools. Tens of viewings and a dozen offers.
Our budget expectations has increased to £1.2m and we will soon be priced out of the most expensive area. We will not go for a 2nd child. Most people we know go private. Is the premium worth it or should we just save time and energy and just go private?

I think the idea is with a house in a good catchment area you will get the money back when you sell it after your dc have finished school, whereas with school fees you won't.

A house is an appreciating asset (generally, long term). School fees will be money you never see again and increase significantly year on year. I would go for the house, if you can afford it.

This is true as long as your house is still in the catchment when you come to sell.

Catchments for the most sought after schools tend to shrink over time.

what part of SW London, my part or Wandsworth is seeing people leaving London so school catchments increasing.

A house is an appreciating asset (generally, long term).

I also think it will take yrs to make money so depends how long you want to stay.

With increased acadamisation catchments may change as the MAT can name feeder schools rather than distance from the front door.

& lots of people near me move out for secondary or go private for secondary

plus energy bills are going to have a massive impact on some schools. Academies tend to have reserves.

What is a good catchment when you buy may not be such a good catchment when you leave. Schools that today have a failing status get a new head, new leadership team and additional funding sunk in, other schools that are today 'outstanding' the head retires,. a less able leadership team brings it back to a mere 'good' and the school loses it's appeal to the nearby once sink school that's now getting Outstanding.
I would buy based on reasonable schools where you can envisage your child will be happy + location in relation to commute, local facilities (shops, Post Office) etc.

A good school when you are pregnant is no guarantee of a good school when you have a school age child. We had a school rated good near us for years, change of head (retired) and lots of staff left, school was requires improvement at the next inspection a few years later.

Was cheaper for us to go Private than move. Or we could have moved to a smaller house or a worse area but in catchment for a good school (which I actually don’t rate)

@steppon different areas: Southfields, Putney, Barnes and Wimbledon.
@MaxmaraDress would that be relevant if we will look at private schools for secondary?
@Ariela how would you define “reasonable”? At the moment we are looking at the performance score and % overachieving, but are also a bit cynical about the amount of tutoring, the social distribution and attention to education in an area where most houses are 1m+
@CatherinedeBourgh that’s where we started
@Headabovetheparakeet i know 😕

are also a bit cynical about the amount of tutoring, the social distribution and attention to education in an area where most houses are 1m+

I agree with this. My nephew goes to an outstanding school in a wealthy area and all the kids have tutors. My sister doesn't think the teaching standard is as good as the results suggest.

Work out the maths. The private schools we were looking at in SW London were £12k (reception) to £25k (gcse and 6th form) a year per child x 14 years (plus factor in extra fees like trips, bus, meals, if you want them to do languages , instruments etc) .

Worked out better for us to move slightly further out to Surrey and be in an excellent state school catchment (compare the results to the private school results) and spend more on the house and clubs rather than the the schools.

As someone who's been to state and private schools and has sent DC's to state and private schools I think people are bonkers to spend money on houses when they could afford private education.

A house is just a house. If you buy the equivalent house in a worse catchment you get a much nicer house.

The value of a good private education last a lifetime and also into how your DC's parent and educate their DC's.

Your grandkids won't get anything from a catchment house.

@Namechanger965 how do you suggest to mitigate the risk? Buy only very close to application date? What turnover is normal in this field in London…?
@Hoppinggreen interesting, we are now getting close to being priced out of the area where we leave, which is the most expensive of the 4 we are considering but at the same time the one growing slower %wise…

@felulageller we are not originally from the UK, so a bit difficult to understand the added value of private school at primary level. In brutal honesty, when we asked friends why the chose private, it became apparent that there was a social segregation aspect they valued…what am I missing please?
@Gonnagetacatwhenimovein our math is for 1 child only and for primary only hence the dilemma. Where/what school would you recommend we look at in Surrey please?

I think you have to factor in that lots of people when buying a house want the safety net of a decent state school, even if you think you might go private- for example if a parent is (or both parents are) ill or lose their job you could get a mortgage holiday but unless you’ve got years of private school fees saved up you might have to go state at that point. Some people disagree with private education full stop, so it’s important to them. And for others who have 2, 3 or more kids even if they only use the state school for a few years they make the “extra” money back that they might have paid for the house (17k a year fees for 4 years to cover the pre-prep stage amounts to about 200k if you have 3 kids, even before you count the tax you’d have to pay on earning that amount of money). So as others have said this might make the difference when you come to sell the house on.

I was having this conversation with DH yesterday. I am a teacher in a state school and yet if I only had one child I would use the money to put them through private education. It’s a similar price to what we’ve been paying for childcare anyway and I would happily sacrifice the extra money. However, now we have two DC under the age of two, it’s not doable for us!
However, the “safe”‘outstanding school in my area (which commands a good £50k-££70 extra on house prices in catchment) has just been rated inadequate! I’d be very annoyed if I’d just put down an extra £70k for the same house I could get elsewhere in another part of our area for a lower price. It’s such a long game if your children are young that I think private education is the better option!

the thing with Ofsted ratings is that a missing piece of paper can impact the grade so I always read the actual reports. Look at the progress scores & visit the schools.

In Wimbledon Chase there is an excellent primary but the catchment is tiny, I went to school in Wimbledon. Putney & Barnes I'm not sure about. Southfields is that BP?

What about secondary? I think the best state secondaries in Putney & Wimbledon are catholic but this may have changed.

Do you own your current home? If so then maybe sit it out for a bit. We found that we weren't in catchment for reception but a couple of years later moved schools and could have gone to any of the primaries due to the drain to private, Brexit and people moving out of London.

I don't know of a terrible school (teaching-wise and results) in the areas you are looking at. Some have a demographic that you may not like though.

Secondary level has even more going private and moving out, BUT with fees going up and cost of living issues I think there is a bit of a trend to try state. State secondary options in Putney / Southfields / Barnes aren't amazing though. I think Wimbledon is a bit better. I wonder of the state secondaries will improve.

The London school atlas is a really useful tool for catchment areas: apps.london.gov.uk/schools/

if fees are 20k a year (might be more) then it’s 200k to take them through to sixth form - prob more with all added extras. So depends on the cost of the house move?

There’s no better investment than your child’s education!
Do what you can afford, whether that’s private or supplementing with tutoring.

You pay for education either way. Either directly via fees or indirectly via house price + mortgage payments.

I am not sure that it's worth paying for private at primary level esp. in the area. However, I do think that you might need to consider what you will do for secondary and whether you have a girl or a boy. some of the private schools for girls in the area are a bit easier to get into than boy ones. If you are catholic - there are also a couple of state ones (well one really) thats pretty good in Wimbledon but mainly for girls. I would almost suggest that you go state for primary and private for secondary. When people talk about buying into a catchment they usually talk about secondaries rather than primaries. Would you consider buying somewhere like Raynes Park and just go private for secondary?