Research: Link Between Curb Appeal and Home Price

Judging a book by its cover may not be wise, but judging a home's value by its outward appearance does matter, according to a new Harvard University study.

Based on research by housing scholar and urbanist Ed Glaeser of Harvard University and others, the working paper, “Computer Vision and Real Estate: Do Looks Matter and Do Incentives Determine Looks,” validates the commonly held belief that curb appeal affects home price, MarketWatch reports. The visual representation of a home in its listing affects pricing by 12 percent, or $68,000 for the average sampled home.

As for the other factors, which the researchers classified as “incentives,” some may be surprising. Homes that were foreclosed upon lost about 4 percent of their visually observable value, relative to homes that had not undergone foreclosure. “These estimated effects are far lower than some estimates of the social cost of foreclosure, but still significant both economically and statistically,” they say.

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