The impact of multifamily development on single family home prices in the Greater Boston Area

Abstract

The impact of large, multifamily developments on nearby single-family home prices was tested in five towns in the Greater Boston Area. Case studies that had recent multifamily developments built near transit nodes or town centers were chosen. For each town, a conservative impact zone around the multifamily development was established, and sales prices in this area were compared to those in the rest of the town. Using data on the sales of single-family homes from 1987 until 2005, regression analyses were used to construct hedonic price models for the impact and control areas. This model was used to create a sales price index over time. The trend in the index of the impact zone and the control area was compared in the years immediately preceding the permitting of the multifamily development and the years following completion of the development in order to determine if the multifamily development affected sales prices in the impact zone. In the four cases for which there was appropriate data, no negative effects in the impact zone were found.