Schools lie at the heart of our lives – affecting our families, our homes and our financial security. We entrust schools to educate our children; we choose communities to live in based on the local schools; and, even if we have no children or they’re grown, we value our homes according to their assigned school attendance zone.
That’s why, when data about schools is perceived as inaccurate, incomplete or too difficult to use or understand, emotions run high. Businesses that provide school data that is out of date or incomplete risk seriously alienating their customers.
Here are the 4 dangers of using inferior data about schools for internal analysis or to build an application in the real estate industry.
1. Users Seek Out Another Site
On real estate portals: Poor data might mean that users don’t have enough information to pursue a property for sale. They may not be able to determine which school attendance zone (SAZ) their home would fall into, or they may have no way to assess performance of the school in their SAZ.
The GreatSchools.org interactive map tool view for Oakland, CA, which uses Maponics school data. The Glenview Elementary SAZ is demarcated by the orange line and the Oakland Unified school district boundary is the blue line. Individual school ratings are also pictured (orange pushpins), as well as school district ratings (blue pushpins).
2. Your Reputation Is Harmed
For real estate agents: Subpar school data might mean you can’t give accurate information about the surrounding schools to your clients. You might not be able to tell your prospects which neighborhood or particular street would go with which SAZ – or even which school would be the best fit for their particular child.
Homebuyers have an enormous stake in understanding which school their child will attend – and realtors need to provide that information accurately. Photo source: cbsnews.com
3. Your Customer Base Dwindles
For property data providers: Real estate appraisals that rely on low-quality school data will not be able to correctly compare property values. To formulate accurate and useful appraisals, appraisers need precise information regarding which homes are in which SAZs. If that data is seen as untrustworthy, appraisers stop using it.
Home properties vary widely depending on which school attendance zone they fall into – and SAZs can split neighborhoods in a way that’s not intuitive. Photo source: Salon.com
4. You Become Increasingly Irrelevant
On real estate portals: Portals that don’t use the latest data risk being viewed as outdated. Without well integrated data that’s easy to understand, your website may be grouping information in a way that isn’t keeping pace with recent advances.
Maponics School Boundaries enable the real estate giant Trulia to group search results based on school district, SAZs and school rankings.
Maponics strives to provide complete and accurate School Boundaries. And, through Maponics Context™ School Rankings, customers get statewide school performance rankings, math and reading test scores, historical rankings and school profiles, which can be easily projected onto Maponics boundaries.
Learn more about our School Boundaries with our School Boundaries Demo.
To request a sample of our School Boundaries, complete a brief School Boundaries Sample Request form.