Who would have guessed homes with street addresses ending in Boulevard, Place and Road sell for more, on average, than those ending in Avenue, Drive or Street.
We are not suggesting you should go on a campaign to get your city to transform your street into a boulevard, even for a 2% bump in value (about $6,000 on a $300,000 home sale). It’s just fun to know.
A recent Real-estate marketplace study came to this conclusion by analyzing its database of homes for sale.
The researchers looked for the median price per square foot for each address suffix. They used only suffixes with at least 10,000 homes for sale. The correlation between street name and price was surprising. As it turns out, homes on ‘boulevard’ ($117) are the most expensive while the cheapest are those on ‘street’ ($86) — that’s a 36% price difference!
A 2% bump
They looked at more than 2.5 million listings in this study after examining all of the MLS listings. So boulevards, at 2%, represents approximately 50,000 listings, while streets, at 19%, represents approximately 475,000 listings.
Below is what the study learned. Here’s a guide: The dollar figure shown is the average per-square-foot price of sales in each category. The percentages are each suffix’s share of the total number of properties analyzed. (The percentages are rounded off, so they add up to less than 100%.)
Boulevard, 2%, $117.
Place, 2%, $110.
Road, 16%, $109.
Way, 3%, $107.
Terrace, 1%, $102.
Court, 6%, $101.
Lane, 8%, $101.
Circle, 3%, $100.
Trail, 1%, $97.
Avenue, 15%, $96.
Drive, 22%, $96.
Street, 19%, $86.
why are pricier addresses are on boulevards?
Well, while the word does have a sophisticated French origin, it actually might have more to do with the mix of the homes located there. Approximately, 37% of homes on “boulevards” are in multi-unit buildings, such as apartments and condos. In contrast, these types of homes make up no more than 16% of homes on every other address suffix. A greater concentration of multi-unit buildings could drive up costs as they are often located in denser, urban areas where space is at a premium.
Paying for prestige
The study also found that people were willing to pay for perceived prestige, maybe even more than they were willing to pay for good schools.”
Velma Zahirovic-Herbert and Swarn Chatterjeem of the University of Georgia studied 21 years of real-estate transactions in Baton Rouge, La. They found that homes in subdivisions with “country” in the title sold for 4.2% more. Add the word “club” and you add an additional 5.1% to the sale price.
The word “estates,” on the other hand, didn’t add a penny to the value, they mention in a footnote. The study attempted to control for all the other features of the homes, including location.
Breakdown
The study lists the dollar value buyers put on the following words. The first number shows how much faster or slower a home sold when a word was included in the property description. The second number is the effect the word has on the list price. The third number shows the word’s effect on the final sale price.
Beautiful: -15%, +5%, +5%.
Move-in condition: -12%, insignificant, insignificant.
Good value: -5%, -6%, -5%.
Must see: insignificant, +4%, insignificant.
Starter home: -9%, -10%, -10%.
Vacant: insignificant, -5%, -8%.
Rental property: +60%, -7%, -9%.
Handyman special: -50%, -30%, -30%.
Moving: insignificant, -1%, -1%.
Motivated: +30%, -6%, -8%.
Landscaping: -20%, +5%, +6%
So what do you think? Are you ready to go out and petition for a street name change? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
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