Benicia has made a “top 10” ranking of Bay Area cities because of its quality schools, Teri Davena, Economic Development Division administrative assistant, said.

The city learned Tuesday of the ranking by ZipRealty, which looked at municipalities with the highest-ranked school districts.

The online brokerage company compiled a list after scoring school districts from zero to 10, with 10 being the highest ranking.

The company based its assessment on test scores and student-teacher ratios in cities for every home on its listings.

Benicia came in ninth, with a school score of 7.4, beating out Alameda, which came in 10th.

ZipRealty also added median home prices to its report, and said Benicia’s median home price is $215 a square foot, compared to Alameda’s $365 a square foot.

Those median home prices varied widely, and didn’t correlate to school quality. Most of the top 10 school scores were in East Bay cities, where median home prices were less than $500 a square foot. Only two cities had square-foot prices above the $500 mark.

One of the first questions homebuyers ask is about the quality of nearby schools, Don Cruz Datanagan, a broker with ZipRealty who oversees the North and East Bay areas, said.

“School scores absolutely impact real estate values,” he said. “Homebuyers want the best education for their family and if it’s going to cost them a little extra money to be in the best school district, a lot of people are making that sacrifice.”

Top ranked were Piedmont and Palo Alto, which scored 9.3 in the company’s calculations. ZipRealty said the median price of a Piedmont home is $581 per square foot, and in Palo Alto, $1,004.

Danville was third with a score of 9, and a median home price of $365 a square foot. Fourth was Pleasanton, with a score of 8.7 and a median home price of $392 per square foot.

Dublin was fifth, scoring 8.6, with a median home price of $314 a square foot, followed by Albany, which scored 8.5 and has a median home price of $405 a square foot.

Fremont scored 8.1, and has a median price of $429 a square foot to come in seventh. Castro Valley was eighth with a score of 7.7 and a median home price of $289 a square foot.

Sarah Arnold, an agent with Pacific Union who sells homes in the East Bay, said homes in places with good schools are investments.

However she said the survey’s rankings don’t capture as much information on districts that overlap more than one city or which have boundaries that have changed.

She said Peninsula cities and several in the East Bay, such as Moraga, Orinda, Lafayette and Walnut Creek didn’t make the list although they are also known for strong schools. She said Oakland’s large districts skew that city’s rankings.

But she said the rankings are important, even to those who don’t have children. She will show homes in good school areas to childless clients, because resale values there are higher. “You have to think like an investor, and about where you want to live.”

Sharing is caring!