Editor’s note: This article is excerpted with permission by AOL Real Estate. View the original article.
By CATHERINE NEW
Want to boost the price on your house? Go country. Commonly held wisdom is that a prestigious-sounding name can add value to a neighborhood or subdivision. Now the research proves it. Buyers are willing to pay a premium of 4.2 percent for a property with "country" in the name and an additional 5.1 percent for the phrase "country club," according to new research.
The researchers from the University of Georgia looked at data from multiple listing service sales reports in Baton Rouge, La., between 1984 and 2005. Like the country club areas, subdivision names tend to include words suggesting a slower, more bucolic lifestyle — along with exclusivity and prestige.
Some of the industry’s favorite buzzwords include "pleasant," "acres," "hills," "estates," "ridge" and "heights." One Denver blogger created a mix-and-match grid for Rocky Mountain neighborhood names. How about a residence at The Manor at Silver Fox Range? In cities, the art of the well-named neighborhood has long been in the dominion of brokers and developers eager to recast an area as upwardly mobile. In New York City, the rise of new neighborhood names has been so fast and furious that Brooklyn’s Democrat Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries introduced a state bill in April trying to limit the names on microneighborhoods.
Read the full article at AOL Real Estate.
Catherine New is a reporter with the Huffington Post Media Group.
Copyright 2011 AOL Real Estate.
