House Prices vs Population and Public Schools in the Metro-Atlanta Area

When it comes to housing prices, there are many factors to consider with an endless list of priorities that every individual will examine. While buyers have multiple choices to look at and can choose to live in an area where specific resources are accessible, there are some factors about the area that the buyer has no control over but will be affected by. This study aims to examine two area factors and determine if they have an impact on housing prices: area population and public-school locations. In this context, population and (median) housing prices will be organized into ranks of high, medium, and low. Public schools are defined as elementary, middle, and high schools that are supported by public funds as disclosed by the National Center for Education Statistics. Housing prices are organized by zip code and the population is organized by county. Population and public school locations are two area factors outside of the seller and buyer’s control, but could still impact house pricing and value. To test the hypothesis that a high population and a high amount of public school locations in an area increase the housing price of the area, the statistics of all three data groups will be visually compared and statistically summarized. Housing prices will be compared to population and then separately compared to public school locations. The results showed some correlation between the two factors and housing prices, proving the hypothesis to be true to an extent. These results show that the statistics suggest a correlation, but not causation when it comes to house price, population, and public schools