The practice of establishing rental homes by families trying to get into the catchment areas of the best schools is a trend that looks set to grow.
Moving to be close to leading educational facilities is nothing new. In fact, study findings released by the Nationwide last month show that one in ten parents made a house purchase choice based on schools, with one in ten admitting they would shell out a premium of more than 10% for a property if it were close to the best schools.
However, this desire translates to the rental market too.
After connecting with more than 20 letting agents on Twitter, we found that families with school-age children using the lettings market either to live genuinely in a particular catchment area, or to have an address in one, is prevalent and even ‘rife’.
Sometimes, families rent out their own home to tenants in order to move and rent another property closer to a desired school. Families don’t want to lose their mortgaged home – which often contains the equity and provides a long-term investment.
In some cases, families are even willing to split their addresses, with an instance of a father staying in the big family home while the mother moved to a rented property in the desired catchment area.
All the agents we connected with said that school catchments were playing a big part in rental moves.
So, if you consider that buyers will pay up to a 10% premium when purchasing a house in a good catchment, surely the same thinking can be applied to rent?
* Simon Duce is managing director of the ARPM Group, which provides national outsourced lettings and property management services
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