Use RPR for A+ School Reports and Data

It's August, and that means "Back to School" time. A time for your clients to work on clothes, supplies, carpools and schedules for the coming year.

And time for you to take a refresher course on RPR School reports and data!

RPR school reports and data

Schools play an important role in the home buying process. However, it's not just parents of school-aged children that benefit from good schools. Home values benefit, too.

Deciding to buy a home in a good school district can certainly help increase your clients' home value over time. And if the market shifts or "corrects" in the future, an outstanding school district could make all the difference during a changing market.

Let's take a look at RPR school data, how you can search for homes in specific school districts with RPR, and how you can create reports that will guide your buyers to better informed decisions.

RPR school data–you could say it's a Niche market

RPR's school data is robust and extensive. It's provided by a collaboration with Niche, the industry's fastest-growing school data provider.

Niche specializes in connecting schools with students and families. It has in-depth profiles on every school and college in America, including over 140 million reviews and ratings. With RPR, you can access this data which includes teacher, academic, and overall school grades; as well as school district side-by-side comparisons. Specific metrics include:

• Total enrollment
• Students per teacher
• Average GPA
• Math and reading proficiency
• Percentage of gifted students
• Number of students enrolled in AP
• Graduation rate
• Average ACT and SAT scores
• Average teacher salary
• Percentage of teachers in the first or second year
• Written school reviews

RPR school searches

When a buyer client wants to be in a specific school district, you can use RPR maps to search for properties near schools or within district boundaries.

REALTORS® can search for schools within 5 miles of a location; by city/state, school, or district name; and even by type of school (elementary, middle or high school).

Here's how:

1. Log in to narrpr.com
2. Click Research and then select School Search. The school search will appear.
3. From the left drop down menu, choose whether to search by Geography or within a particular School District. Enter the city and state or zip, and click the magnifying glass to execute your search
4. To further narrow down your search, enter a School Name to the right of the School Search or choose a School Type: Elementary, Middle, High

Search results extra credit

1. From the Search Results, view the basic information and rating of each school, create a School Report, or View Nearby Listings. If you're looking to dive deeper on a school, select the School name.
2. You'll see the school's address, grades served, enrollment, information about standardized test scores and the school's grade rating, including the average rating for schools in the area.
3. The Reviews tab displays community reviews for the school. These reviews are also provided by Niche.
4. You can also link to nearby listings, neighborhood information, and other local schools

RPR School Report cards

The final step to helping your buyer clients in their school search is creating and delivering RPR School Reports. Much like our Property Reports, they contain tons of data in a sharp-looking layout that you can easily send to clients electronically or you can print them out and bind them for in person delivery.

An RPR School Report summarizes the data from your search, and provides options to compare schools within a district or a specified radius, and/or select up to 20 nearby listings to include in the report.

• From the school results page, click Create Report (or choose Schools from the Reports menu).
• Select to choose the elements you want displayed on the report
• Personalize your report with a recipient name and message
• Choose your delivery method
• Click Run Report

School zone ahead

Schools play an important role in home searches, whether the buyers have children or not.

As a REALTOR®, you can tap into RPR data to search, compare and find the right schools in the right neighborhoods. Use these tools to find homes in or near coveted school districts, which helps kids get a solid education, and certainly doesn't hurt home values.

To view the original article, visit the RPR blog.