Do residential property values go up when an area becomes a Historic District?
I have often heard that the high Historic Design Review fees in Portland are offset by higher property values within Historic Districts. Irvington became a Historic District in October 2010. Did becoming a Historic District increase the sale price of residences in Irvington?The chart below shows the average sale price per square for residences within the Irvington Historic District as a percent price premium over the rest of 97212.
The data clearly shows that the creation of the Historic District has not affected property values significantly. As expected with a relatively small data set, there is some yearly fluctuation. From 2004 on, we can see the price premium varies about 6% per year. The following chart shows the number of residential sales in 97212, where sales in the Historic District average 31% of the total.
Notes
- All of the data comes from Portland Maps, where sale data begins in 1985.
- Data is through July 2012
- Only properties listed as Residential are included.
- If a property sale is listed multiple times at the same price, only the first one is included.
- If a sale is recorded for less than 50% of the property's previous highest sale value, the low value is discarded.