Do Homebuyers Care about the 'Quality' of Natural Habitats?

G. Katz, Bonnie Colby, Daniel E. Osgood, Rosalind H. Bark-Hodgins and J. Stromberg

No 19283, 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)

Abstract: We study if homebuyers in Tucson, Arizona care about the condition of natural habitats and if they have preferences between natural and manmade habitats. Using field work data we examine whether homebuyers willingness to pay is influenced by the biological condition of the neighboring riparian habitat and how homebuyers value alternative manmade green areas, specifically golf courses. We also explore the relationship between the field data and remote sensing vegetation indices. The results of a hedonic analysis of houses that sold within 0.2 miles of 51 stratified-random selected riparian survey sites in Tucson, Arizona reveals that homebuyers significantly value habitat quality and negatively value manmade park-like features. Homebuyers are willing to pay twenty percent more to live near a riparian corridor that is densely vegetated and contains more shrub and tree species, particularly species that are dependent on perennial water flow. These environmental premiums are significant, outweighing structural factors such as an additional garage or swimming pool. Likewise, proximity to a riparian habitat with low biological quality or to a golf course lowers property values.

Keywords: Land; Economics/Use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/19283/files/sp05ba02.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea05:19283

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.19283

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().