It’s no secret that the three most important aspects of a property are location, location, location. But what does this adage really mean in terms of added value?
A prospective buyer’s hierarchy of desires can vary, but it’s safe to say that there are a few common wants like accessibility to work, good school districts, and great views that any buyer would be comfortable paying a premium for. None of this is groundbreaking news. What is lesser known, however, is how to quantify this premium.
Since we specialize in providing the premier global showcase of water view properties, we’re most interested in the effect of a water vista on property values. Luckily, a team of researchers using some cutting edge 3D map modeling software and some fancy statistics figured this out for us. According to their research, it turns out that for properties in the $600,000 to $5,000,000 range, buyers are willing to pay up to a $233,000 premium for a full sea view. For units in the lower price range, they found that buyers and sellers can expect about a 15% premium, on average.
Now obviously every locality is different, so the premium one can expect will vary. However, we used real estate website Zillow.com to do a quick, non-scientific survey of homes that are either for sale or have recently sold in the Point Richmond area of California to compare the prices of those with water views to those without. We found somewhat similar results to those mentioned earlier. For a 3 bedroom, 1 bath home of about 1500 square feet in the sub-$600,000 range, those with water views command a nearly 30% premium over those without (admittedly, our sample size was fairly small).
For buyers, this research indicates that choosing a property with water views can adda good deal of value to the home (about 15%), all things being equal. Additionally, if you’re looking for an investment property to rent out, owning a water view will invariably increase the amount you can expect a renter to pay. We used the same website to take a look at average rental prices in the Venice Beach/Marina Del Ray area of Los Angeles, California, and found similar results. On average, rental prices for comparable homes were about 30%-40% higher for those with water views than for those without.
These data are significant in that advertising your water view property on usawaterviews.com will allow you to reach a nearly unlimited number of prospective home buyers, providing ample opportunity to get the best price for your listing.