The influence of urban design packages on home values

Author(s):

Christopher Bitter ( University of Washington Seattle United States )

Andy Krause ( University of Melbourne Parkville Australia )

Citation:

Christopher Bitter, Andy Krause, (2017) "The influence of urban design packages on home values", International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, Vol. 10 Issue: 2, pp.-, doi: 10.1108/IJHMA-08-2015-0049

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJHMA-08-2015-0049

Downloads:

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Abstract:

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of neighborhood design templates on residential home values in King County, WA, USA. Previous research examines a number of individual design factors; the research here combines these factors into typologies and tests for the impacts of the composite set of design features.

Design/methodology/approach

We analyze over 27,000 home sales with a hedonic price model to measure the impacts across three large, regional submarkets. Neighborhood design categories are developed using a cluster analysis on a set of individual neighborhood attributes.

Findings

The key finding from this research is that the impact of more traditional (“urban”) design packages on home values is highly contextual. For the older and denser neighborhoods in the study area, more traditional design results in a significantly positive impact on home values. In the new and more suburban regions of the study area this effect is not found.

Originality/value

Prior work has focused on valuing design attributes individually. We argue that neighborhood design is better conceived of as a ‘package’, as the value of a given design element may depend on other co-located attributes. This is the first study, to our knowledge, to treat physical neighborhood design variables as a composite whole and to attempt to value their impact on home values as such.

Publisher:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright:

© Emerald Group Publishing Limited 2017
Published by Emerald Group Publishing Limited