We all know that transportation and housing are related, but a new study finds that short commutes can make your property worth more.
A researcher at the London School of Economics found that, in the Los Angeles region, short commute times correlate with better housing prices. In other words, the less highway congestion you have, the more expensive your house is.
This varies across income groups, with middle-income properties benefiting the most from less congestion. Researcher Yuting Hou writes:
My work sheds light on the potential benefits of strategies to reduce congestion. For example, improving access to job opportunities at the regional level by reducing congestion levels at those routes heavily used for regional-wide commuting trips may increase housing price at locations connected by those routes. Given the different values each income group places on job access and congestion delays, we may infer that places concentrated with middle-income households will experience the largest housing value increases from accessibility improvements and congestion mitigation.
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