You’ll notice that we’ve included the ‘Walkability Score’ for the condos we’ve highlighted on our site…for good reason! Not only is ‘walkability’ a lifestyle joy, a new report indicates that it translates directly into increases in value.
Indeed, the report indicates:
Homes located in more walkable neighborhoods—those with a mix of common daily shopping and social destinations within a short distance—command a price premium over otherwise similar homes in less walkable areas. Houses with the above-average levels of walkability command a premium of about $4,000 to $34,000 over houses with just average levels of walkability in the typical metropolitan areas studied.
The report is comprehensive, looking at several dimensions of ‘walkability’:
Our analysis of walkability and its connection to urban housing values unfolds in five parts. First, we explore the concept of walkability, what it is and how it is measured. We describe the Walk Score measure developed by Front Seat and how it provides a tool for measuring the relative accessibility of common destinations to housing units. Part two discusses the tool of hedonic analysis developed by economists to decompose the contribution of different attributes to the value consumers place on complex products. Part three outlines the data we use to analyze home values and neighborhood characteristics. Part four lays out the results of our hedonic modeling and the relative contribution of walkability to housing prices. Part five discusses the economic and policy implications of our findings and suggests next steps for further research.
It’s a 30-page report and interesting reading, but the bottom line is this:
After controlling for all of these other factors that are known to influence housing value, our study showed a positive correlation between walkability and housing prices in 13 of the 15 housing markets we studied. In the typical market, an additional one point increase in Walk Score was associated with between a $700 and $3,000 increase in home values.
The full report is located here.
What do you think?
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