---
title: do parks increase property values
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/do-parks-increase-property-values
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/do-parks-increase-property-values.md
subtitle: "the neighbor's trees raise your value more than your own"
category: esv
---

# do parks increase property values

*the neighbor's trees raise your value more than your own*

Yes, measurably, and the effect fades with distance. Homes next to a park sell for a premium that the hedonic literature puts at 8 to 20 percent, falling to about nothing by half a mile away. Street trees add to a home's price and to a city's tax roll. And the trees that raise your value most are not the ones in your yard. They are the ones on the block around you. The park and the canopy are the stock. The cooling, the air, the view, and the place to be are the flow. The sale price is where the flow lands.

The park is a living thing before it is an amenity: a piece of what the framework calls [Urban Open Space](/natural-capital/stocks?from=guide), with a fence or a curb as its boundary. It exists whether or not the appraisal mentions it. [**Ensurance**](/?from=guide) is how the people on the far side of the fence can pay the park. It is not the park.

:::johnson
**the neighbor's trees raise your value more than your own.** — A meta-analysis found canopy off the property moves the price more than canopy on it. Spillover, made literal, in a sale record.

[see the flows a city block draws on →](/natural-capital/flows?from=guide)
:::

## what the measurements found

Real estate has measured this for decades, with a method built for it. The method is **hedonic pricing**: take thousands of sales, control for the house and the neighborhood, and recover the implicit price of being near a park, under a canopy, or in sight of a view. Whether protecting one place helps the land around it, across habitats and mechanisms, is answered on [does protecting one parcel help the land around it](/guide/does-protecting-one-parcel-help-the-land-around-it?from=guide); this page keeps to the park and the block.

| the stock | what the measurement found | source |
|---|---|---|
| A public park | An 8–20% premium for adjacent property, decaying to about zero by half a mile | Crompton 2001, the seminal review |
| Street trees | About $8,870 added to a home's price in Portland, and about $15.3 million a year in property tax across the city | Donovan and Butry 2010 |
| Tree canopy near but not on the property | A larger effect on price than canopy on the property itself | Siriwardena, Boyle, Holmes and Wiseman 2016, meta-analysis |
| Protected open space | A higher premium than open space that is not protected | Hedonic studies of protected and developable open space |
| A view | Recognized by the appraisal profession as a value attribute; the scenic easement is the term for protecting it permanently | Paterson and Boyle 2002; the Appraisal Institute |

The third row is the one to sit with. A homeowner who plants a tree raises their own price a little. The block that plants trees raises everyone's price more. The canopy is a stock that sits on many parcels at once, and its flow, shade, cooler air, a green view, lands on every parcel within reach, whether or not that parcel contributed a tree.

The fourth row is the second thing to keep. Open space that is protected for good, by easement or public ownership, commands a higher premium than open space that could be built on next year. Buyers price the permanence. The flow is worth more when it is certain to keep arriving.

## the flows, in the framework's words

A park produces several of the nineteen flows at once, and each one crosses the fence.

- **Aesthetic and Sensory.** The view, the green, the quiet. Much of the hedonic premium is likely this, though a sale price cannot split the view from the walk.
- **Recreation and Experiences.** The place to walk, run, meet, and sit. It lands on everyone within walking distance.
- **Climate Stability**, at the block scale. Shade and evapotranspiration cool the air for a distance past the canopy's edge. [Energy savings from trees do not repay the canopy](/guide/energy-savings-from-trees-do-not-repay-the-canopy?from=guide) and [who pays for the canopy on a hot block](/guide/who-pays-for-the-canopy-on-a-hot-block?from=guide) cover the heat bill and the meter; this page does not repeat them.
- **Clean Air.** Some particulates caught on leaves. The effect on a block's air is real and modest, and it depends on species and street shape.
- **Risk Resilience.** Unpaved, uncompacted ground takes in rain that a paved block sends to the sewer.

## who is on the far side of the fence

| who receives the flow | which flow | where it is counted |
|---|---|---|
| Every home within about half a mile | The view, the walk, the cooler air | The sale price, with the premium fading by distance |
| The city | Part of the premium, taxed where assessments follow sale prices | The assessment roll: about $15.3 million a year in Portland, in Donovan and Butry's estimate |
| Tenants and the people on the block | Cooler nights, somewhere to walk, somewhat cleaner air | Nowhere they hold; often in the rent they pay |
| The stormwater system and its ratepayers | Infiltration | Runoff the pipes did not carry; in combined-sewer cities, a smaller overflow |

The second row is unusual in this series. A park's flow lands on sale prices that a city already taxes, so the city sees part of it come back through the property tax, where assessments follow the market. Parks departments have long used this to argue that a park pays for itself. A special assessment district, a park improvement district, or tax increment financing goes further and routes some of the premium to a named budget. Those are working, partial wrappers, and parks have more of them than any other stock in this series. Whether the money reaches the park is another question.

## where the value lands

The park's own budget shows none of this. It shows mowing, water, staff, and a line in a capital plan. The premium it produces is counted in the neighbor's appraisal and the city's roll, and the canopy's cooling is counted, if anywhere, on a utility bill that went down. [The premium went next door](/guide/the-premium-went-next-door?from=guide) sets out the general case, that markets capitalize nature into someone else's asset; this page only shows it happening at the scale of a block, with the numbers the appraisal profession already uses.

A sale price sees only part of a park: the part that sticks to the homes nearby. It misses the visitor from across town, the shade on the bus stop, and the park's worth to anyone who will never buy a house beside it. Even that part is priced every day, and the price is paid to the parcel next door rather than to the park. The flow is measured. The source is not paid.

## the honest part

The 8 to 20 percent range is a review's summary across many cities and many kinds of park; a given park can sit outside it, and a park that is unsafe or unmaintained can carry a discount. The Portland figures are one city, one study. Parks are not placed at random, and the better studies work to separate the park from the wealth that grew up around it. The canopy meta-analysis measures elasticities, not dollar amounts, so "more than your own" is a statement about direction and relative size. And a premium is paid once, to whoever owned the house when the park arrived or improved; each later buyer pays it forward in the price. A tenant gets the cooler air and pays for it in rent, and where a new park or greenway lifts rents fast enough, the people it was built for can be priced off the block. Planners call this green gentrification. It is also the strongest objection to funding parks from the premium: value capture raises the most where homes are already worth the most, and the least where parks are thinnest. The flow is real. Who keeps it on the far side, and who is pushed past it, is a question a sale record does not settle.

## frequently asked questions

### do parks increase property values?

Yes. The hedonic literature finds an 8–20% premium for property adjacent to parks, decaying to about zero by half a mile. Protected open space commands a higher premium than open space that could be developed.

### do trees increase property values?

Yes. In Portland, street trees added about $8,870 to a home's price and about $15.3 million a year to the city's property tax. A meta-analysis found that canopy near a property raises its price more, in percentage terms, than canopy on the property itself.

### how far does a park's effect on property values reach?

The premium is largest next to the park and fades to about nothing by half a mile, in Crompton's review. Cooling has its own reach, which [who pays for the canopy on a hot block](/guide/who-pays-for-the-canopy-on-a-hot-block?from=guide) covers.

### who pays for a park today?

A city budget, and sometimes a conservancy or a special assessment district on the surrounding blocks. The sale premium goes to whoever owned nearby when the park arrived or improved; the city sees part of it through the tax roll.

## next

The last post in the series asks why the counting always happens on the far side of the line: [what a positive externality is](/guide/what-a-positive-externality-is?from=guide).

If you run a parks department or a city budget and already see the roll move with the canopy, [governments](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=flows-across) shows how a city funds natural infrastructure, urban forests included, alongside the budget it already runs. If you can name the park your block stands on, [tell us which](/contact?from=guide&topic=flows-across).

## sources

Crompton, J.L. 2001. *Journal of Leisure Research*. — An 8–20% premium adjacent to parks, decaying to about zero by half a mile.

Donovan, G.H. and Butry, D.T. 2010. Trees in the city: valuing street trees in Portland, Oregon. *Landscape and Urban Planning* 94, 77–83. — About $8,870 per home; about $15.3 million a year in property tax citywide.

Siriwardena, S.D., Boyle, K.J., Holmes, T.P. and Wiseman, P.E. 2016. *Ecological Economics*. — Meta-analysis of hedonic studies: off-property canopy elasticity larger than on-property.

Paterson, R.W. and Boyle, K.J. 2002. *Land Economics*. — The canonical scenic-view hedonic. The Appraisal Institute recognizes view as a value attribute.

## the series

1. [what is a spillover effect in nature](/guide/what-is-a-spillover-effect-in-nature?from=guide)
2. [do marine protected areas help fisheries](/guide/do-marine-protected-areas-help-fisheries?from=guide)
3. [what retention forestry actually does](/guide/what-retention-forestry-actually-does?from=guide)
4. [what agroforestry does for the field beside it](/guide/what-agroforestry-does-for-the-field-beside-it?from=guide)
5. [do parks increase property values](/guide/do-parks-increase-property-values?from=guide)
6. [what a positive externality is](/guide/what-a-positive-externality-is?from=guide)