This matters more here than in a tighter catchment, because four neighbourhoods feed into this school and none of them falls entirely inside the boundary. Parts of Jefferson, parts of Mill Pond, parts of Crosby and parts of Langstaff. Saying "Crosby is in catchment" is not accurate enough to buy on.

Boundaries are set and reviewed by York Region District School Board, not by the city and not by whoever wrote the listing. Enrolment pressure, new construction and periodic reviews all move them.

Use the board's school locator with the full property address, or phone the board and give them the address. Do it before you write an offer. If school access is the reason you are buying here, it is the most important verification in the purchase and it takes a few minutes.

If you want the least maintenance: Jefferson. The housing is twenty years younger than Crosby or Mill Pond, which means the roof, furnace and windows are not immediate questions.

If you want to walk places: Mill Pond, and it is not close. Nowhere else in Richmond Hill genuinely works without a car for daily life.

If you want the most house and land per dollar: Crosby. The trade-off is that you are usually buying something that needs work, or paying for someone else's renovation.

If you need to commute downtown, or the budget is tight: Langstaff. The GO connection is the strongest in the city and it is the only part of the catchment reachable at condo prices.

1. Verify the exact address. None of these four neighbourhoods sits entirely inside the boundary, so the neighbourhood name tells you nothing definitive.

2. Compare within the catchment and within the housing type. A Crosby bungalow and a Jefferson two-storey are not comparable sales even though both feed the same school.

3. In Crosby and Mill Pond, ask for the dates. Roof, furnace, air conditioner, windows and electrical. Homes from the 1950s and 1960s often have had work done, and often have not. Neither is a problem if the price reflects it.

4. Ask whether a boundary review is under way. The board publishes its review processes. Worth checking before you commit to a purchase built around a boundary.

Because the catchment spans four very different neighbourhoods, the buyer for a Langstaff condo and the buyer for a Jefferson detached are almost nothing alike, and marketing that treats them the same underperforms.

In Jefferson and Crosby you are selling primarily to families, and the school belongs near the top of the listing. In Langstaff you are often selling to first-time buyers and investors, where transit, price per square foot and the future development picture matter more than the catchment. In Mill Pond you may be selling to a downsizer who does not care about the school at all.

Confirm your current catchment before you list and state it accurately. Do not repeat what the previous listing said and do not overstate it. An inaccurate catchment claim is the kind of thing that unravels a deal late.