Does the value of your house depend on one person? like, say, a HEADMASTER?!

[LittenTree]

because it strikes me that ours does!

Have been watching the flurry of 'to lets' and for 'sale/under offers' in our area and see how they ebb and flow with the nearing and receding of the October Cut Off for secondary school applications. An actual bidding war broke out over a house identical to ours recently and the 'winners' paid, imho, at least 335k more than they could have seeing as another, identical house sold just up the road a few months earlier for that £35k less.

I wonder what would happen if the Head of the school in question left? OK, I know the reality is that most consistently 'good schools' are far more than just a good Head teacher but a local primary, for instance, stopped being fought over in just a year after its Head retired!

Just pondering!

Interesting question as I was talking to my friend about this today!

We have a school near us that was Outstanding for years, even when I was at primary school it was considered a "better" school than mine and has always been seen as one of 2 top schools in the area.

My friend moved into the area 2 years ago, purely because of the school, however the Head left, was replaced by a lady who went onto Maternity after a year and has since had a succession of Acting heads. It has now been absorbed into a "Federation" of schools and so will share resources with 2 other schools nearby.

As such several parents are moving their children to a new school down the road (which is a state school being funded by a private school) and the current parents are unsure quite how the school(s) are going to work.

She is concerned because their house was pretty top end, and the proximity to the school had been all over the Estate Agent website (more so than details of the fabric of the house, for example) however she is very close to a station, good transport links and has found herself also in the catchment of the new state / private school so should be reasonably ok. She is pretty cross with herself, though, for not considering school reputations can change.

Oh goody. Our primary head is retiring soon! I look forward to my house rising in value