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Gigabit Internet Connections Make Property Values Rise
Jason Koebler writes: When families go to buy a new home, they're most often looking for a couple things: Good schools, a safe neighborhood, maybe something that's near public transportation. And, increasingly and undeniably, access to gigabit internet service. A study by RVA LLC Market Research and Consulting found that fiber optic internet adds roughly $5,250 to the value of a $300,000 home. "It's getting to the point where, if my neighboring community has a gig and we're still doing satellite, the property value in that town is going to go up," Deb Socia, director of Next Century Cities, a coalition of cities trying to provide gigabit internet speeds to their citizens, said. "You're going to lose people and you're going to lose revenue without it. I'm hearing it from folks in different chambers of commerce, in real estate, in politics."
"It's getting to the point where, if my neighboring community has a gig and we're still doing satellite, the property value in that town is going to go up," Deb Socia, director of Next Century Cities, a coalition of cities trying to provide gigabit internet speeds to their citizens, said. "You're going to lose people and you're going to lose revenue without it.
So she's equating high latency capped satellite service against gigabit fiber? Well duh. It would be more interesting to see if average people would really be willing to pay that $2,500 premium if the choice was between DOCSIS 3 service and fiber service. Or even between reasonably fast DSL vs. fiber. It's been my experience that there's not much difference for the typical user (hint: /.'ers are not typical) once speeds exceed 5mbit/s. What's the practical difference between the higher D3 tiers (say 50mbits) and gigabit fiber? How many websites can actually push a gig? Symmetrical upload would be the only selling point I can think of, but strictly speaking you don't need fiber to provide that service, nor do you need gigabit speeds to take advantage of it. I sit on a 30/30 connection right now that meets all of my needs and as an IT professional I'm well ahead of the target market for consumer ISPs.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You'd probably have most of the villagers at the town hall with pitchforks and torches. Funny how we want the services and value, but almost nobody is willing to pay what it's worth to get it.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Do the study in a real housing market like DC or NYC or San Fran - then we'll see if the theory holds water.
Some backwater with a 2.7% rise in values is definitely not worth the time to even research.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
5k on a 300k house is less than 2 percent. That falls under statistical error in everything I've seen, and especially in the case of housing prices it seems unlikely to significantly affect pricing or demand.
I'd still rather have a strip club nearby. Also ready access to marijuana.
All those that talk about "location location location" really mean "the things you can't change". Interior, exterior, garden, floor plan, pretty much anything can be redone but you're stuck with your surroundings. And you're usually stuck with a crappy Internet connection. And despite most people not getting around to changing all they'd like to change, they kind of know they could. Things you can't fix tend to gnaw at you a lot more. I'm probably more Internet-addicted than the average person but I don't think I'd want to live at any place with <10 Mbit/s Internet. Unless it's a tropical island or something, then I'd make concessions. Or put up a big satellite dish, not really sure.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Does that mean Comcast et al will get the boot from more municipalities?
Table-ized A.I.
I've often wondered why homebuilders aren't building fiber to the home and then coordinating with raw internet providers like Cogent. Add some mesh networking to support older adjacent homes and you'll finally kill Comcast.
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Security and safety of my children came first, of course. Can the home(s) I'm looking at be connected to high-speed internet service was near the top of the list though. I have access to Cox and FiOS up to 150Mb, which meets my needs for the immediate future. Gigabit would be nice to have though...
Gigabit internet connections make my pants rise
I just bought my forever house and had a few beautiful places picked out but had to change my search area because internet access sucked balls everywhere in that area. At best, I could get "up to" 3mbps DSL at a couple locations. Now I know why prices were so much lower in that area. And the realtors I talked to said "What kind of internet is available?" is one of the first questions people ask these days. Of course, when I asked that question, none of them could answer it.
So I shifted my search closer to The Big City where I got cable internet and almost as much privacy.
As for the value of internet, I was ready to spend up to 10 grand to improve infrastructure to the right property so figure that into the equation however you will.
You'd probably have most of the villagers at the town hall with pitchforks and torches. Funny how we want the services and value, but almost nobody is willing to pay what it's worth to get it.
I would happily pay $5000 to get hooked up for gigabit. Just not to comcast, time warner, verizon, or AT&T. Screw those guys.
Well 5000 amortized over the life of a 30 year mortgage is only like 20 bucks a month. Who in their right mind wouldn't pay an extra 20 a month for gigabit ethernet?
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
So when Big Cable gets wind of my community considering putting in FTTH, and they invariably engage in their traditional filth-throwing, can I sue them for tortious interference because they're causing me financial hardship? Provided my house is technically "for sale" at the time, of course.
Try coming to the UK and see what you get for that - not much, in either house or internet bandwidth
If gigabit internet access increases property values, that means that local governments would have an incentive to pursue policies that get that internet installed in their communities. That way they can get more tax revenue off of the properties in their town. It may only be about $150 per house per year, but if you have a large town, the upgrade could pay for itself over 10 years or so, and have happier residents.
We got rid of the tax-and-spend bums yesterday. Starting in January, we'll have another type of bums in Washington. With this type, we can expect economic improvement - more business being done, and thus more jobs and *gasp* profit from the stuff those jobs produce.
thanks for this story, it great travel planner
because the Man owns me #wageslave
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I'm not sure the cut-and-spend bums are any better then the tax-and-spend bums.
Cheap storage VM.
Oh look, some "researcher" looked at another spurious correlation.. http://tylervigen.com/
The summary says that Fiber Optic adds $5k, but the title says Gigabit makes homes rise in value. Both are probably true, but the title does not say the same thing as the summary.
What exactly are they going to do to improve the economy? Deregulation broke it in 2007 (of which Democrat B. Clinton gets some of the blame per banking dereg).
Table-ized A.I.
Last I looked, the US stock markets are at all time highs. I am not certain more profits are necessarily equaling more jobs or more pay for existing employees. It is only equaling more capital returns for stock owners.
Further, cuts don't necessarily have the economic improvement. Just look at the experiment in Kansas.
I say why not. Obama is America's destiny.
you mean the big government spend and don't tax right wingers?
You're probably familiar with various differences between the policies each party supports. What you may not be aware of is that since the great depression, economic growth has ALWAYS improved over the period of every republican president's budgets, and always gotten worse of the course of every democrat president. The one exception is the 2008 housing crash.
People can argue forever about fairness and a number of other things, but this is simply a fact- the economy always improves with republicans in charge.
Have another look. In real terms, the Dow still isn't as high as it was in 2000. Devaluing the dollar is actually a _bad_ thing. Soon, the markets will probably get back to the same level as fourteen years ago, inflation adjusted.
If you want to go by the markets, the market has rallied on the news of the republican wins, with the Dow up 100 points today. That is a record high, if you ignore inflation. In real terms, the markets are still lower than they were fourteen years ago, in 2000.
Well, we just voted in loads of cut and spend assholes in.
The official data on economic growth can be found here:
http://www.bea.gov/national/xl...
A chart matching growth with president's budget's can be found here for 1964-2006. Not shown on that chart is 2008, which is
http://bettercgi.com/tmp/econo...
Again, the numbers and chart don't tell us anything about fairness, social justice, or any other issues. It simply shows that "pro-business" republican policies have been good for the economy. This trend shouldn't be surprising - we'd expect government spending on assistance programs to increase with democrat presidents, and we'd expect business to do well with republican presidents. What I find surprising is the consistency - the fact hat growth got worse under EVERY democrat president between their first budget and their last.
As you indicated, the budget has to be approved by both congress and the president. For example, Reagan had to negotiate with the Democrats, who were in control of congress. Obama's party controlled both houses of congress at first, then the republicans controlled the house. What we can say is that the president, in signing a budget, has a significant impact on the how government funds are spent, and how much is spent. Each senator also has small amount of influence, but the president's influence is roughly the same as all of the congress put together, so the budget will certainly tend to reflect a president's priorities.