Walkable Neighborhoods Have Higher Home Values

All sorts of variables affect housing prices: the size and age of the home, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, neighborhood incomes, the distance from major job centers. Walkable neighborhoods tend to be worth more because they're closer to downtown. Courtesy of city of Sammamish, Wash.

The next time you design or install residences, you may want to include sidewalks. A report from CEOs for Cities, ''Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Home Values in U.S. Cities,'' contended that more walkable neighborhoods increase home values. According to CEOs for Cities, data was analyzed from 94,000 real estate transactions in 15 major markets provided by ZipRealty and found that in 13 of the 15 markets, higher levels of walkability, as measured by Walk Score, were directly linked to higher home values.

CEOs for Cities added: ''The study found that in the typical metropolitan area, a one-point increase in Walk Score was associated with an increase in value ranging from $700 to $3,000 depending on the market. The gains were larger in denser, urban areas like Chicago and San Francisco and smaller in less dense markets like Tucson and Fresno.''

CEOs for Cities