You may be surprised to know that the value of your home can increase — or decrease — based on the name of the street it resides. A recent study by real estate company Agent Advice found that water, earth and royal-inspired road names were among the top names that could boost your house's value by thousands of dollars. Living on a street named after a body of water can increase your property value by an average of $64,689, while the average value of homes with rural and earthy street names is $81,00 above the national median, according to the study. Streets with regal connotations boosted a property's value by $126,000.
“Street names are an often overlooked factor when deciding where to buy housing,” commented a spokesperson from Agent Advice. “A pleasant-sounding road name or one located by a desirable geographic feature can greatly influence the attractiveness to a buyer. Our research shows that roads with names related to bodies of water, rocky features, vistas, and a sense of privacy experienced higher-than-average property values compared to the national median.”
The study collected data on addresses and home prices in each state (76,889 total). Researchers assigned a median value to each of the words within a given address, based on the corresponding home's price. After identifying the median house price for each word, this value was compared to the US national median value ($387,600) to determine the effect of the street name on the home's price.
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Here are the names that could boost your house value, along with the average increase above the US median.
The best street names
Earthy road names that could boost your home value:
1. Peak ($253,007)
2. Mesa ($157,722)
3. Heights ($131,874)
4. Point ($111,227)
5. Highland (95,373)
6. Gulch ($79,900)
7. Rock ($78,937)
8. Ridge ($60,541)
9. Canyon ($57,160)
10. Valley ($12,075)
Aquatic road names that could boost your home value:
1. Atlantic ($930,900)
2. Water ($230,625)
3. Bay ($129,202)
4. Reserve ($93,845)
5. Brook ($92,233)
6. Pond ($77,437)
7. Spring ($34,746)
8. Lake ($32,629)
9. Creek ($15,293)
10. River ($9,618)
Out of these road names, Creek, Lake and River were the most common.
Royal road names that could boost your home value:
1. Queen ($760,400)
2. Charles ($563,650)
3. Saint ($152,233)
4. Andrew ($32,345)
It makes sense that these street names would increase the value of a property, as aquatic and earthy names indicate your home is located in an attractive environment. Who doesn't want to look out their window and see the mountains or live right on the water?
On the other hand, streets named after Confederate generals and related themes were found to bring lower home prices. According to Bloomberg, Confederate addresses sell for 3% less on average than similar homes on nearby streets that aren’t named after Confederates — a home-sale discount of about $7,000 on a $240,000 home. Agent Advice also found that streets named King or Kings were undervalued by one quarter compared to the US median.
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