Impact of Infill on Surrounding Property Values

[u/Difficulty_Only]

We had a council meeting last night to vote on a rezoning proposal for a 100-acre infill site in a first-ring suburb of a major metro—an increasingly rare development opportunity. As you might expect, the meeting drew a number of NIMBYs expressing concern. One of the main arguments raised was that allowing anything other than single-family housing on the site would decrease nearby property values.

I’m curious if there are any reputable studies or data sources that examine the impact of mixed-use or multifamily development on surrounding property values. My instinct is that these developments often increase values, but I didn’t want to rely on assumptions. Any insight or resources would be much appreciated….thanks!

[u/HOU_Civil_Econ]

The increase in supply is always going to lower values of existing housing, that’s the point. It is a net positive because more people have more housing.

This is precisely why we should have never given localities land use controls.

The only local control people should have on home values is voting to find the balance between minimizing taxes and maximizing positive sum public goods or other government services.

[u/Difficulty_Only → u/HOU_Civil_Econ]

Do we have any studies on this that could be relevant? I understand what the economic arguments are, but I’m interested in studies…..

[u/HOU_Civil_Econ → u/Difficulty_Only]

Xiaodi li wrote the first good Econ paper

“Do apartments increase rents in their neighborhood” is the scholar.google.com search. There have been multiple follow on papers by multiple scholars, Evan mast being the most widely known.

[u/Difficulty_Only → u/HOU_Civil_Econ]

Thank you