School District Home Searching in San Francisco Bay Area: Palo Alto's Most Expensive, San Ramon's Best Value

School district housing is a favorite among the Chinese, especially in the Bay Area, which has a wealth of educational resources that heats up the real estate market. We'll take a look at seven cities in the Bay Area that have the best U.S. school district housing, providing an important reference for home buying.

School district housing is a favorite among the Chinese, and the Bay Area in particular has excellent educational resources.

Piedmont
Surrounded by Oakland, California, Piedmont has an area of 1.678 square miles with a population of just over 10,000 people. From mid-November last year to February this year, its homes were listed at an average price of $2.252 million. The average sales price is $1.975 million. From mid-November last year to February this year, home prices were $725 per square foot, up 32.8% from a year ago. Despite being surrounded by Oakland, its crime rate is well below the Oakland and California average. The average unit value of a household is $760,000.
There are three elementary schools in Piedmont, a high school and a middle school. In 2013 the high school API was 908 points. Among them, Asian students scored a whopping 948 points. The percentage of them going to college each year is very high. It is among the best school districts in California.

San Ramon and Danville
Danville had homes listed at an average price of $1.338 million and sold at a median price of $995,000, up 6.4 percent from a year ago, but the number of homes sold was down 12.7 percent. $431 per square foot, up 2.6 percent from a year ago. San Ramon, the city bordering Danville, had homes listed for an average of $1.03 million, with a sales median of $750,000. $410 per square foot, up 9.3 percent from a year ago.
The median annual household and per capita incomes were $125,800 and $50,000 for Danville and $95,800 and $42,300 for San Ramon, respectively.
San Ramon Valley Unified School District is arguably the best school district in the Bay Area, with San Ramon's Monte Vista High School having a 2013 high school API of 913 and an Asian API of 950.
Dougherty Valley High School's 2013 API was 928, with a whopping 965 points for Asians and 884 points for San Ramon Valley High School. Almost all but one of the primary and secondary schools have an API above 900 points.
For those who want to get to the highest-rated school district, but where prices are relatively cheap, San Ramon is the one out of seven cities with the best value for money. It is a relatively new city and remote to Silicon Valley or San Francisco as a disadvantage compared to other cities.

Palo Alto
The most expensive school district in the Bay Area. In February of this year, the average listing price was $3.445 million and the median sales price was $2.13 million, averaging $1,444 per square foot, up 18.2 percent from a year ago. Popular neighborhoods in Palo Alto include Downtown and Old Palo Alto, with average listing prices of $4.938 million and $5.759 million, respectively.
The average annual household income is $117,500 and per capita income is $56,000. The average home is worth $818,000 per household. Except for its high scores, unlike other cities in the Mid-Peninsula, Palo Alto 's school district does not enroll students from other cities. All students come from their own cities.
Two of its high schools, Henry M. Gunn High, had a 2013 API of 917 and Asian students scored 954. Another Palo Alto high school had a 2013 API of 905, with Asian students scoring a whopping 968.

Cupertino
The median listing price for Cupertino properties was $1.7 million and the median sales price was $1.437 million, an average of $827 per square foot, up 9.1 percent from a year ago. The average household income is US$ 109,000 and the per capita income is US$ 44,700. The median price of a house is $649,000 per unit.
Cupertino has three high schools that are highly sought after by Chinese: Cupertino High School, Homestead High School, and Monta Vista High School.
Monta Vista High School's 2013 API was a whopping 956 points, with 969 for Asian students, which made up more than 77% of the student body. Cupertino High School's 2013 API was 906 points and Homestead's 2013 API was 873 points, with an average of 930 points for Asians.

Pleasanton
The average listing price was $1.449 million and the median sale price was $837,000. It averaged $470 per square foot, up 16.3 percent from a year ago. The median annual household income is $103,000.
Its public schools are Amador Valley High School and Foothill High School, with a predominantly white student body. Private high schools are The Quarry Lane High School. Amador Valley High School had an API of 897 and Asians 954 in 2013, while Foothill High School had an API of 871 and Asians accounted for less than one-third but a high API of 934.

Fremont
The Fremont homes were listed at a median price of $1.055 million, with a sales median price of about $708,000. The average square footage was $485, up 15.5 percent from a year ago. The median annual average household income is $82,000 and the per capita income is $31,000.
Fremont has Irvington High School, John F. Kennedy High School, and the prestigious Mission San Jose High School with API scores of 884, 743, and 951 respectively, and Mission San Jose High School has an Asian score of 968. In addition, private high schools have Fremont Christian School. The popular community of Warm Spring lists for an average of $993,000 and Irvington for $846,000.

Los Gatos and Saratoga
The Saratoga area sold for $755 per square foot in February of this year, up 6% from a year ago. The median listing price of the house is $4.414 million and the median sale price is $1.915 million. The median annual household income is $155,000 and the annual per capita income is $65,000. Housing units cost an average of $1 million.
Prior to February, Los Gatos was listed at a median price of $2.552 million and sold at a median price of $1.3 million. $685 per square foot. The median household average income is $119,000 and the annual per capita income is $56,000.
The 2013 Saratoga High School API was 938 and Asians scored 967. The primary and secondary schools are excellent. It also has some of the top-ranked private high schools in California, such as Sacred Heart School. Los Gatos High is predominantly white, with a school-wide API of 883 in 2013 and only about 1 in 10 Asian students, but with a higher API of 940 in 2013.
(The above house price data is from the Trulia website and API data from the California Department of Education website)