New data has revealed the $600,000 premium Auckland parents pay to live in the zones of the city’s most exclusive public schools.
A typical house now costs $1.39 million in the zones of high schools located among the top-third most expensive areas in the city, the Herald and Valocity analysis of 55 secondary and 282 primary schools found.
That’s $594,711 higher than the typical cost of a home near a secondary school with a zone located among the least expensive areas.
The new data also shows east Auckland’s Glendowie College has the most expensive zone in the city with a median $1.9m value in 2025.
The fastest price growth since 2014 has been Rodney College’s zone in the city’s north, jumping 114%, while primary school zones have even bigger differences.
Homes in zones of primary schools in the top-fifth most expensive areas in the city were $914,899 – or 123% – higher than those in the least expensive areas.
Wayne Shum, senior research analyst with Valocity, said the $600,000 premium might make some parents think twice about paying extra to live in Auckland’s famous Double Grammar Zone (Auckland Grammar and Epsom Girls Grammar).
Shum said 5% interest on $600,000 would equate to about $30,000 annual interest payments or roughly the cost of private school fees.
“Staying in a bigger house outside Double Grammar Zone and sending your child to a private school might be a better choice than living in an apartment with a teenager,” he joked.
The premium reveals the financial considerations some parents will face if they choose to move inside the zone of their chosen secondary school.
And it could become even harder if the trend towards blocking out-of-zone students continues.
North Shore school Rangitoto College recently announced it wouldn’t be accepting out-of-zone students in 2026, meaning only children living within its zone will be able to enrol at the school.
Mount Albert Grammar has signalled it may not accept out-of-zone students next year and other popular public schools are also limiting places.
One West Auckland mum told the Herald last month her family’s life had been put on hold as a result of school zoning changes.
They had their son accepted into Westlake Boys’ as an out-of-zone student a few years back, but it now looked like they wouldn’t be able to get their daughter into a similar North Shore public school next year.
They tried running the sums to see if they could move into a North Shore zone but found it unaffordable, she said.
Homeowner Tom Rawson is another who told the Herald earlier that he bought in Glendowie College’s zone because he believed he was saving money in the long run.
While many parents prioritise school zones in choosing where to live, schools do not necessarily lead the way in driving housing prices up.
Other forces such as the type of housing can play bigger roles, Shum said.
School zones are “probably less of a house price driver than they were previously”, he said.
Areas with more townhouses and apartments will typically have lower median prices than areas that don’t because these smaller homes are generally cheaper and drag the overall price down with them, he said.
That also highlights what might be a surprising find to some from the analysis: the exclusive Double Grammar Zone has not kept up with the value rises of its peers in the top-third of school zones.
The Herald compared prices across an 11-year time frame from 2014 to 2025, based on data available from Valocity.
Over that time the typical prices in Auckland Grammar School and Epsom Girls Grammar’s overlapping zones in the city’s inner suburbs had risen 47% or $481,000.
By contrast, the typical price in all the other school zones among the top-third most expensive areas had gone up 60% or $522,000.
Shum said the Double Grammar Zone had likely not kept up because more apartments and townhouses have been built in its zone than Glendowie’s, for instance.
Among other key findings, Epsom Girls Grammar, at $1.7m, and Macleans College, at $1.67m, were the next two most expensive zones behind Glendowie.
Epsom Normal Primary School was the most expensive zone of any school at $2.98m, followed by Victoria Avenue School in Remuera at $2.52m.
KEY INSIGHTS:
KEY INSIGHTS:
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.