How To Boost Your Home's Value Through Urban Green Space
Each homebuyer has his or her own predilections. Some homeowners will only buy if the home has a large kitchen, en-suite master bathroom, or double garage. While there's another breed of home buyer who will not move into a home unless the backyard backs onto a park.
If you like to look out onto the wide-open green, ask your home realtor for real estate listings near green spaces. Besides the view, here's how green spaces can increase the value of your home.
The Value of Homes Near Parks
Homebuyers have different reasons for buying a home that is beside, looks onto, or backs onto a park. They may be nature-loving, claustrophobic, neighbor-shy, or astute buyers.
Whatever the rationale, when you go to sell your home, you will be able to fetch a higher price. Homebuyers are willing to pay more for privacy and a park view. How much more? A home with a park in close proximity can boost a home's value by 8–20 percent.
The Premium for Homes on Parks
Research on home values and parks has found the homes with the highest value appreciation are:
- directly adjacent to a park (20 percent)
- next to green space with hiking and jogging trails (32 percent)
If you are buying a home in a new subdivision, it is well worth your while to check city plans to determine which spaces have been reserved for parkland and public green spaces.
Urban Green Space Development
If instead, your home looks onto an abandoned field, you might realize a small appreciation in price. Worse still, cities often use these neglected public lands as dumping grounds. Unsightly soil, building materials, and even equipment may be piling up.
Green neighborhoods and city councilors are mobilizing to push cities to convert these abandoned fields into the intended public space. Baltimore, for example, is showing the way by expanding its urban tree canopy — the percent of the city shaded by trees — from 27 to 40 percent.
While planting more trees, you can turn fields and parking lots into green squares, parks, and greenways.
By pushing your city to develop more green space in your community, you can increase the value of homes. Other tangential benefits of more green space include:
- offsetting greenhouse gases
- producing cleaner air by reducing pollution
- improving city water management
The best realtor in your city is the one who knows how to find and help develop green space to boost the value of your home and quality of life.
