Does living near MARTA affect home prices? (Atlanta, Buckhead: sale, 2013)

[arjay57]

Well, which station?

A new study mapping out home sale prices near MARTA stations highlights broader disparities in Atlanta’s housing recovery

More...Does living near MARTA make your home more valuable? Depends on which station. - Atlanta Magazine

[cqholt]

Yes it has a positive impact on property values.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Yes it has a positive impact on property values.

According to the data in the article, however, property values seems to be much more related to other factors.

Many of the higher priced homes are further away from MARTA stations and often the lower priced ones are closer.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Well, which station?

Well, as always, it's complicated. I have seen articles talking about how immediate proximity to a station reduces value, though having access generally increases value to the neighborhood. This is mostly attributed to the 'nuisance effect' of train and crowd noises right at a station.


There's also some evidence that immediate access to transit, makes your value more stable and less susceptible to economic shocks.


Doing this comparison with MARTA stations is an interesting thing, and, generally, it seems that many other factors take over the majority of determining the value. That shouldn't be too surprising, since schools, police/fire/emt response times, crime, median income, parks, neighborhood aesthetics, proximity to commercial space, proximity to entertainment, and proximity to industrial space all weigh quite heavily.


It is my hunch that transit stations only have a small impact directly adjacent to them, and that a blockish away any negative impact is replaced with a positive one, or no impact at worse. That can be helped by making the stations, especially the behemoth fortresses (looking at you King Memorial) more attractive in general. Art inside and out, goods stands, and a bit of cleaning should help.


It's important to note that just because there's a slight drop around the station, doesn't mean it isn't still valuable land. MARTA is lucky in that it owns a lot of property immediately around some of its worse offending stations, and a lot of the issues will me mitigated as TODs roll out. That will generally kill the immediate negative affects, and could potentially even raise nearby values even more.


There is also consideration to be made between the difference of a large HRT or commuter rail station vs. the generally smaller BRT, LRT, and streetcar stops that interact much better with the sidewalks.

[Hokiehaven]

I can agree, I think part of it is that for many of the stations, there haven't been major improvements for a significant amount of time since MARTA hasn't had the money to improve a lot of it's areas and they don't necessarily interact with their regions particularly well.

So, improvements in the stations themselves and how they interact with their surroundings could go a long way into making the immediate nuisance factor go away, particularly as more and more people are moving in-town.

[AnsleyPark]

Perhaps in an upturn in the economic cycle, I could agree that living near transit is a positive for home values. I think in a downturn, living near transit is not the positive that it was in an upturn. My guess is that the estates in Buckhead maintained their value relatively well during the recession but intown condominiums did not. My home in Ansley maintained its value well (even rose) during the downturn. I don't believe that is the case for condos on the transit lines.

But, that's all me conjecturing. Happy to be wrong.