Quieter Streets Linked to Increase in Home Prices
An analysis of Florida homes showed that properties located roughly a football field away from newly installed traffic noise barriers saw prices rise by nearly 7%.
NEW YORK – Homes located near newly constructed highway sound barriers tend to see meaningful price increases, according to a recent study analyzing nearly 600,000 Florida properties.
Researchers found that properties closest to sound barriers experienced the largest gains, with values rising about 6.8% in the years following construction, the Wall Street Journal reported. Sound barriers' impacts on home prices declined based on distance from the barrier, with price increases of about 3.9% for homes located 100 to 200 meters from a newly constructed sound barrier, 3.1% for homes located 200 to 300 meters from a barrier and 2.8% for homes 300 to 400 meters from a barrier.
“Five years before the construction of the sound barrier, home prices in both the treatment and control groups moved in tandem, influenced by similar variables such as school quality, crime and street cleanliness,” the Wall Street Journal reported. “But in the five years after noise barriers were built, properties closest to the busy highway saw an immediate and largely permanent increase in property values, above and beyond any normal price moves.”
The study controlled for other factors that can influence prices, including school quality, crime, air pollution and visual changes to surrounding areas.
Enrico Moretti, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and one of the paper’s co-authors, said, "Buyers are willing to pay a substantial premium for each decibel of noise reduction."
For every decibel of muffled traffic noise, property values rose nearly 1%. With a wider analysis, the authors found that traffic noise can reduce property values by nearly $110 billion nationally, and many of those lower values are among homeowners with lower incomes.
Source: Wall Street Journal (12/14/25) Ward, Lisa
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