Values of environmental landscape amenities during the 2000–2006 real estate boom and subsequent 2008 recession

Abstract

This research suggests that consumers' marginal willingness to pay for environmental landscape attributes, such as water view, developed open space and forest-land open space, decreased during the 2008 recession compared to the 2000–2006 real estate boom. Estimates were obtained from a spatial hedonic housing price model after controlling for household location patterns and structural differences between the periods. Because the decline in amenity values was probably due to a temporary deterioration in economic conditions, the amenity values will probably rebound with economic recovery. Thus, development decisions based on the lower estimated amenity values measured during a temporary deterioration in economic conditions may be determined suboptimal post-economic recovery.