Street Names in Austin - Can a Politically Incorrect Street Name Influence Property Price?

We are in the process of purchasing some lots in Oak Hill with a few other buyers but they don't like the name of the street and want the developer to change it. The street name is "Sisquoc," which I think is a good name. The Californian Chumash Indians translate Sisquoc as stopping place. There is a river called Sisquoc River in California. The developer mentioned to me that some of the buyers believe it is too hard to say and spell. The city is having the name of the street changed to "San Lucas."

Anyway, this started me thinking about Austin's street names, and the reality that plenty of streets have names far more disagreeable than Sisquoc. For example, the South Austin's Shady Hollow subdivision has street names like "Shoot Out," "Six Gun," "Shotgun," "Ammunition," and "Gun Fight."

I asked Sylvia if she'd live on a street named "Shoot Out" or "Gun Fight" and she answered "No way!" I wonder if a left wing liberal would pass up the home of his dreams if it was located on "George W. Bush Blvd"? Brisket Lane would probably scare the wits out of a vegetarian. Getting a home on Devil's Cove is something a devout Christian Conservative will maybe need to think about. So can street names play a major role when planning on purchasing or selling a house? I went on to learn more about this.

Using an MLS search, I was able to get information about the Shady Hollow homes sold since 2000 that have street names that are related to guns. There have been 71 sales on those particular streets. The sales price averaged $179,677, which equals $98 per square foot. The next search was done with houses that weren't built after 1993 since they were costly to build. Six hundred six houses situated on streets with less obvious western names were sold. The sales price on the average is $225,713, which equals $103 per square foot. It seems that the houses with names that are politically incorrect don't sell for as much compared to other houses in the same subdivision.

What is interesting is that homes with politically incorrect street names are sold just within 37 days and the other homes at an average of 50 days. This is quite contrary to what one would most likely expect if we base it on the gap in their prices. The politically incorrect homes were an average of 1811 square feet while the others averaged only 2144 square feet, which would explain the sales price gap. But there is something not right since the smaller homes sell at a higher per-square-foot price but they don't in this particular case.

This may not appear to be an exact science. Nevertheless, the buyer has to put into consideration the street name which may or may not affect the home's marketability in the future.

Article Source: http://www.myaddirectory.com

This article was drafted by Austin, Texas House Appraiser, a successful real estate authority in the Austin, TX area. He maintains Austin Texas Land Appraisal

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