Capitalization of school quality into housing prices: Evidence from Boston Public School district walk zones

•Previous estimates of the effect of school quality on housing prices may be biased.•I exploit a novel setting that better accounts for omitted unobservables.•Houses more likely to have children are more affected by school quality.•I test for heterogeneity along student oversubscription levels.

Using Boston Public School District's unique walk zone feature to better account for unobservables, I estimate a significant positive effect of school quality on house sale prices. This effect increases for homes more likely to be bought by families with children and diminishes in areas with already oversubscribed schools.