Bloomberg, May 2, 2022, What Does Affordable Housing Do to Nearby Property Values?
Concerns about what happens to the property values of existing residents when affordable housing is built nearby are a common feature of battles over new housing in U.S. cities. But this time, Alexandria’s director of housing, Helen McIlvaine, decided to look for some Alexandria-specific answers.
What she found, after an analysis using Zillow data between 2000 and 2020, and controlling for overall market trends, was that the only significant change was in the positive direction. Homes located within a typical block of the affordable housing developments saw property values increase, on average, by a small but still significant 0.9%.
