This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

« Back to Results

Pricing (Dis)Amenities

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PDT)

Manchester Grand Hyatt, Regatta C
Hosted By: American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association
  • Chair: Siqi Zheng, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Street Name Fluency and Housing Prices

Maggie Hu
,
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Sumit Agarwal
,
National University of Singapore
Adrian Lee
,
University of Technology Sydney

Abstract

This study investigates whether and how street name fluency affects housing prices using a rich sample of housing sale transactions in Sydney, Australia. We find homes with shorter street names (only one word) are associated with a premium of 11.48% than those with three or more words in the street names, implying fluency preference. Meanwhile, street names with fewer letters are priced with a -0.6% discount, that is, street names with fewer words but more letters (longer words) are preferred. Moreover, homes with unique street names have statistically higher prices of 1.4% (or A$9,481) than those with more common names, suggesting disfluency preference. We argue this is consistent with the consumption context effect as homes are special occasion purchases where exclusivity and uniqueness are desired. In addition, homes with less fluent street names are valued more conditional on the street name is rare or the home is in the luxury price range, further confirming the disfluency premium given exclusivity preference. Our results are robust to a matched sample approach utilizing pairs of similar home sales on different streets. Overall, our findings shed light on understanding how name fluency affects the investment decision of special occasion goods such as real estate.

Picture and Playground: Valuing Coastal Amenities

Ronan Lyons
,
Trinity College Dublin
Tom Gillespie
,
National University of Ireland Galway
Stephen Hynes
,
National University of Ireland Galway

Abstract

As the world continues to urbanise, understanding housing market preferences can help planners accommodate city growth. Housing is a bundle of both structural attributes and locational amenities, with “blue space” coastal amenities including both aesthetic (picture) and recreational (playground) services. We examine the effect of these different amenities, applying novel measure of views, suitable for large datasets, to almost 500,000 real estate listings, covering both sale and rental markets in Ireland, 2006-2017. We find that proximity to beaches and similar shorelines is rewarded in both sale and rental markets, as is breadth and depth of sea-views. There is no evidence that urban price premiums differ from rural ones. However, there is clear evidence that sale price premiums are typically larger than their rental equivalents. In addition, sale price premiums are larger in times of falling prices, a finding consistent with “property ladder” effects in tighter markets.

Do School Shootings Erode Property Values?

Ruchi Singh
,
University of Georgia
Juan Muñoz
,
University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

We find that house prices within a school district decline by 7.8 percent in the three year period after a mass school shooting along with decline in number of transactions. The drop in property prices is stronger among houses with more bedrooms, a measure that serves as a proxy for properties most likely to have school-age children in the household. We also find evidence of decrease in school enrollment and in the number of teachers in the aftermath of the shooting. The analysis suggests that it is the deterioration in school quality that results in lower willingness to pay.
Discussant(s)
Wen-Chi Liao
,
National University of Singapore
Daniel Broxterman
,
Florida State University
Jeff Zabel
,
Tufts University
Scott Wentland
,
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
JEL Classifications
  • R2 - Household Analysis
  • Q5 - Environmental Economics