Most agents have decided the safe answer is no answer, so they deflect to a website and change the subject. NAR's June 2026 guidance actually permits factual school-quality information — the conditions are that you give it to every buyer the same way and that none of it is your opinion.
The Close pulled together what top school districts now cost and then landed on the part that governs how you talk about them.
The cost picture first. A MoneyLion analysis using Niche's 2026 Best School Districts ranking estimated that living comfortably in 22 top-district locations would take more than $250,000 a year, with five above $450,000 — Palo Alto highest at $592,025, then Old Westbury, New York, at $494,991. Separately, a realtor.com analysis found the 27 popular districts with average GreatSchools ratings of 8 or higher carried an average median list price of $1.21 million from May through July 2025, about 135 percent above their surrounding metros, reaching roughly 391 percent in Carroll Independent School District in the Dallas metro. Four districts in that sample listed below their metros.
Buyers care: consumer research published in 2026 found 40 percent consider living in a preferred school district very or extremely important.
Then the rules. NAR's June 2026 guidance, as The Close summarizes it, "says agents may provide factual school-quality information as long as they do so uniformly and do not use it to discriminate or steer buyers. It advises agents to stick to objective information rather than personal opinions, hearsay or subjective characterizations of schools."
Two practical lines sit alongside it. Being near a school is not proof a home is assigned to it, so attendance boundaries and pending changes get confirmed through the district itself. And a national school premium does not belong in a CMA — the adjustment comes from local comparable sales.
“says agents may provide factual school-quality information as long as they do so uniformly and do not use it to discriminate or steer buyers. It advises agents to stick to objective information rather than personal opinions, hearsay or subjective characterizations of schools.”
Silence is not the safe position people think it is. If you answer the school question fully for one buyer and deflect for the next, the difference between those two conversations is the thing that gets examined later. Uniform is the operative word in the guidance, and uniform is something you can only prove if you do the same thing every time.
The workable version is a fixed handoff: the same official sources, given to every buyer, with the boundary confirmed at the district rather than assumed from the map. It also keeps you out of the other trap, which is quoting a national premium to a seller who then prices to it.