Strange Things That Surprisingly Affect Your Home’s Value
As with anything, the value of a home is determined by the demand. That’s why we see so many fluctuations in the housing market, all determined by multi-layered factors that move in hard-to-predict waves. However, with the use of online data systems like Zillow, it’s becoming more and more possible to track trends on a wide scale. These databases might be rudimentary and over-simplified methods of tracking your home’s value, but they do show some fascinating patterns.
Most of the major factors that determine a home’s value are common sense, like the property’s size, condition, and neighborhood.
It’s also very common knowledge that kitchens and bathrooms are the best bang for your buck when it comes to remodeling.
Want a higher resale value? Update your kitchen cabinets and resurface your bathtub. It’s that simple.
However, there are also fascinatingly specific things that can make a difference in your home’s value that have nothing to do with those factors.
Here are a few examples that I found really interesting…
The Street Name
Did you know that houses on roads called “St.” sell for less, on average, than a house on a “Blvd.?”
Additionally, most areas prefer a street with an actual name, rather than a number.
Disparities are even found in the house number itself, with some people using numerology to determine which house will bring them luck in the future.
In addition to that, some studies have found that houses with even number addresses sell for more than odd numbers.
The reasons for this are hard to gather. Maybe even numbers make people think of symmetry more, and human beings are drawn to symmetry.
Maybe the fact that it’s easier to multiply even numbers draws people more to them. Nobody knows for sure, but it’s an interesting fact nonetheless.
A Death on the Property
America doesn’t usually consider itself very superstitious. However, all bets are off when it comes to two things: baseball and homeownership.
Surprisingly, one of the biggest hits that your house’s value can take is whether or not there’s a confirmed death on the property.
While death due to sickness or old age will ding your property’s value a little bit, murders, suicides, and overdoses all reduce value greatly.
This is so common that there’s a term for it: “stigmatized.” Some states even require home sellers to have a death disclosure so that buyers know about a house’s history.
Proximity to Starbucks
If your home is within a quarter-mile of a Starbucks, its value will increase significantly faster than houses whose tenants have to drive farther for their coffee fix, according to a study by Zillow.
This is also true for stores like Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Walmart, depending on where your neighborhood is.
The “Starbucks effect” is especially strong in populated, industry-driven cities like Chicago, DC, and Philadelphia.
As of today, there’s no data on whether this effect is also true for Dunkin’ Donuts.
Number of Trees
This one may not come as a surprise. After all, we all love to see trees around us.
They can lower your utility costs by providing shade that lowers the temperature in your home or shielding your lawn from the effects of evaporation.
Amazingly, trees can also have a quantifiable positive effect on our mood, mental health, and familial interactions.
However, trees can be expensive to plant, and take a long time to become established.
Having a mature tree can raise your property’s value by 2%. In high-income neighborhoods, this percentage increases greatly to as much as 10%, perhaps because they’re usually newer areas where old trees are rare.
Even simply having mature trees on your street or in your neighborhood can increase your value by a few percentage points.
Share this:
Category: Housing
