Parents in Greater Victoria pay for school catchments whether they mean to or not. We measured it: family houses listed inside the Oak Bay High catchment are asking 33% more per square foot than the Greater Victoria average. On a 2,000 sq ft house, that is about $382,000. But at the actual catchment line, most of that gap disappears.
This is the first time we know of that anyone has put a per-square-foot number on every secondary school catchment in Greater Victoria, then tested it at the boundaries. The figures come straight from the live MLS® listings on this site and the catchment maps we built for each school, so you can open any catchment below and see the homes behind the numbers.
Every secondary catchment, ranked
Thirteen secondary schools serve Greater Victoria across three school districts. Here is how their catchments compare on the same like-for-like house.
Family houses: average asking price per square foot, by secondary catchment
Active listings, October 28, 2026. Detached houses with 3+ bedrooms and 1,500 to 3,000 sq ft. The dashed red line is the Greater Victoria average of $576 (567 houses).
The ranking tracks geography. The top four catchments, Oak Bay High, Parkland, Claremont and Mount Douglas, cover Oak Bay, the Saanich Peninsula, Cordova Bay and Gordon Head, where lots are bigger and the ocean is close. The West Shore and Sooke catchments, Royal Bay, Belmont and Edward Milne, sit 14 to 15% below the regional average.
What the gap means on a 2,000 sq ft family house
Difference from the Greater Victoria average asking price per square foot, multiplied by 2,000 sq ft and rounded to the nearest $1,000.
The border test: just inside vs just outside
A catchment-wide average mixes the school with everything else about where it sits: the beaches, the lot sizes, the village. To pull the school apart from the setting, we drew a strip 700 metres wide on each side of the lines where two catchments meet, and compared the same kind of house on either side. The homes are a few streets apart, so the main thing that changes is the school.
Oak Bay High vs Victoria High
+3%: effectively no difference · 15 vs 18 houses · Foul Bay Road edge, mostly inside the City of Victoria (Jubilee, Fairfield East, Rockland)
Mount Douglas vs Lambrick Park
+9% for the Mount Douglas side · 7 vs 7 houses · Gordon Head, north of Mount Tolmie
Lambrick Park vs Reynolds
+19% for the Lambrick Park side · 5 vs 5 houses · Gordon Head and the Mount Douglas Park area
Claremont vs Spectrum
+27% for the Claremont side · 6 vs 5 houses · the Royal Oak and Prospect Lake edge
Victoria High vs Reynolds
-2%: effectively no difference · 8 vs 5 houses · Oaklands and Hillside against Quadra and Maplewood
Spectrum vs Reynolds
-2%: effectively no difference · 8 vs 14 houses · the Glanford and Swan Lake edge
The result is striking. Along the Oak Bay High and Victoria High line, where we found the most houses, the premium shrinks from 33% catchment-wide to about 3%, roughly $40,000 on a 2,000 sq ft house. Victoria High against Reynolds and Spectrum against Reynolds show no real difference at all. Bigger gaps appear in Gordon Head and on the Claremont edge, but with only five to seven houses a side, one listing can swing those numbers. Two more borders, Mount Douglas against Reynolds and Esquimalt High against Victoria High, had too few family houses on one side to compare. On the broader house set they came out at +12% and -1%.
District by district
SD61 Greater Victoria
Oak Bay High leads the region at $767 per sq ft, 33% above average, driven by Oak Bay, Uplands and the east side of Rockland and Fairfield. Mount Douglas ($654) and Lambrick Park ($607) split Gordon Head, with Mount Doug's catchment also reaching Cadboro Bay and Ten Mile Point.
Victoria High ($599) and Reynolds ($598) sit a little above the regional average, with the most homes for sale of any SD61 catchments. Esquimalt High ($546) and Spectrum ($519) are the most affordable SD61 catchments for a family house.
SD63 Saanich (the Peninsula)
Parkland in Sidney and North Saanich asks $693 per sq ft, second only to Oak Bay, and Claremont in Cordova Bay and Broadmead asks $665. Stelly's shows $457, but only five family houses were listed in its map on the day we looked, so treat it as a rough reading rather than a ranking.
SD62 Sooke (the West Shore and Sooke)
The three SD62 secondary catchments are the most affordable places in the region to buy a family house. Royal Bay asks $487 per sq ft, Edward Milne in Sooke $496 with the most houses for sale of any catchment, and Belmont $487 on a small sample. A family house that costs $1.76 million on average in the Oak Bay High catchment averages about $1.05 to $1.16 million here.
Two middle school catchments have their own pages: Lansdowne Middle at $536 and Spencer Middle at $516.
The full numbers
| Catchment | District | Main areas | Family house $/sq ft | Houses | Avg family house ask | All homes listed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oak Bay High | SD61 | Oak Bay, Uplands, Rockland, Fairfield East, Jubilee | $767 | 52 | $1,759,000 | 218 |
| Parkland | SD63 | Sidney, North Saanich | $693 | 52 | $1,593,000 | 157 |
| Claremont | SD63 | Cordova Bay, Broadmead, Royal Oak | $665 | 37 | $1,499,000 | 146 |
| Mount Douglas | SD61 | Gordon Head, Mount Tolmie, Cadboro Bay, Ten Mile Point | $654 | 26 | $1,538,000 | 84 |
| Lambrick Park | SD61 | Northern Gordon Head | $607 | 26 | $1,416,000 | 53 |
| Victoria High | SD61 | Downtown, James Bay, Fairfield, Fernwood, North Park | $599 | 37 | $1,305,000 | 360 |
| Reynolds | SD61 | Quadra, Cedar Hill, Lake Hill, Swan Lake | $598 | 43 | $1,264,000 | 156 |
| Esquimalt High | SD61 | Esquimalt, Vic West, Songhees, eastern View Royal | $546 | 28 | $1,123,000 | 246 |
| Spectrum | SD61 | Tillicum, Marigold, Strawberry Vale, Interurban, Prospect Lake | $519 | 54 | $1,130,000 | 182 |
| Edward Milne | SD62 | Sooke, East Sooke, Otter Point | $496 | 69 | $1,087,000 | 177 |
| Belmont | SD62 | East Langford, Colwood | $487 | 7 | $1,047,000 | 64 |
| Royal Bay | SD62 | Colwood, Royal Bay | $487 | 40 | $1,160,000 | 124 |
| Stelly's | SD63 | Saanichton, Central Saanich | $457 | 5 | $1,002,000 | 67 |
| Lansdowne Middle | SD61 | Oaklands, Hillside, Mayfair, Camosun | $536 | 20 | $1,100,000 | 100 |
| Spencer Middle | SD62 | Langford | $516 | 20 | $1,079,000 | 172 |
Before you buy for a school
- Check the address with the district. Boundaries change, and some streets sit right on a line. SD61, SD62 and SD63 each confirm the catchment school for an address.
- Look just inside the line. As the border test shows, homes a few streets inside a catchment often ask close to what the neighbouring catchment asks.
- Compare like with like. A catchment average blends condos, townhomes and houses of every size. Compare the same type and size of home, as we did here.
- Remember asking is not selling. These are list prices. Recent comparable sales decide what a specific home is worth.
Questions buyers ask
Which Greater Victoria school catchment is most expensive?
On October 28, 2026, family houses in the Oak Bay High catchment asked an average of $767 per square foot, 33% above the Greater Victoria average of $576, the highest of the 13 secondary catchments.
Which school catchment is most affordable for a family house?
The SD62 catchments in the West Shore and Sooke: Royal Bay and Belmont at $487 per square foot and Edward Milne at $496. Stelly's showed $457, but only five houses were listed.
Do homes just inside a catchment cost more than homes just outside?
Usually only a little. Comparing houses within 700 metres of each side of a boundary, the gap was about 3% at the Oak Bay High and Victoria High line and close to zero on several other borders. Larger gaps in Gordon Head and on the Claremont edge rest on five to seven houses a side.
See the homes behind the numbers
Every catchment page has a live map of the homes for sale inside it, updated as listings change.
Greater Victoria school catchmentsOak Bay High catchment homesPhoto credits are under each photo. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, used under the licences linked.