By Robbie Webber
Is a home near transit really worth more? According to a Redfin study, the answer is, “Yes. And often it’s worth a lot more.”
Real estate firm Redfin looked at 14 metro areas and compared homes that were otherwise similar except for their Transit Score. According to the study, “These estimates compare homes by controlling for differences in property and neighborhood characteristics, including property size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, age of the building, type of property (single-family, condo or townhouse), neighborhood median income and total employment, and controls for market conditions (appreciation over time) are also built into the model.”
In 13 of the metro areas, the homes with higher Transit Scores were worth more, and for each Transit Score point that the home gained, the price went up. The one exception was Orange County, CA, where homes with better scores were actually worth slightly less.
For each additional TransitScore point, the difference varied from over one percent increase in Atlanta and Boston to a tenth of a percent in Baltimore. And the difference in prices for those extra points can amount to thousands of dollars. Although the average price of homes is already high in San Francisco, each additional Transit Score point adds another $4,485. Atlanta’s average home prices are the lowest of the metro areas surveyed, but each point gained added $1,901 to the price of the home
Real estate agent Rory Haigler says that the high differential in Atlanta exemplifies that transit is becoming more important to home buyers in cities choked with traffic. “It’s easy to see a value premium for a home located near one of the main commuter lines in the metro area because walkability and access to public transportation are relatively rare in Atlanta.”
The full list of metro areas, average home prices, and the differentials for each Transit Score point can be found on the Redfin website. Transit Score, like its older sister Walk Score, is now owned by Redfin.
Robbie Webber is a Senior Associate at SSTI.