Walkable homes get $4000-$34,000 premium

Who says it doesn’t pay to walk?

A new CEOs for Cities study, Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities, surveying 94,000 real estate transactions in 15 metropolitan areas, concluded that homes in more walkable neighborhoods were valued $4000 to $34,000 more than less walkable ones.

Walk Score, profiled previously, has become a dependable resource for providing walkability ratings, from 0 being the least to 100 being the most walkable. In the study, a one-point increase in Walk Score was associated with an increase in value ranging from $700 to $3000. Not surprisingly, the greater values occurred in denser, urban areas.

Of the 15 metropolitan areas in the study, walkability is significantly tied to home values in 13 of them: Arlington, Virginia; Austin, Texas;; Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas, Texas; Fresno, California; Jacksonville, Florida;; Phoenix, Arizona; Sacramento, California; San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Stockton, California, and Tucson, Arizona. Las Vegas and Bakersfield, California were the exceptions.

Read more on the CEOs for Cities website.

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