Redfin Quantifies the Effect of Public Transportation Access on Home Prices

SEATTLE--One Transit Score? point can increase the price of a home by an average of $2,040 or 0.6 percent, according to the latest analysis by Redfin, the next-generation real estate brokerage. To estimate the value of public transportation access when buying or selling a home, Redfin looked at the sale prices and Transit Score ratings of more than one million homes sold between January 2014 and April 2016 across 14 major metro areas. Transit Score measures the usefulness and convenience of public transportation (bus, subway, light rail, ferry, etc.) routes near a given location.

Of the 14 metro areas included in the analysis, one Transit Score point is worth the most, as a percentage of the median sale price, in Atlanta. There, one Transit Score point is worth $1,901, or 1.13 percent, on average. After Atlanta, a point of Transit Score carries the highest value in Boston (1.10%) and Washington, D.C. (0.96%).

"Transit is an important building block to economic mobility," said Redfin chief economist Nela Richardson. "The more that cities invest in good transit, the bigger financial impact for homeowners and the better access families of all incomes have to jobs and public amenities. Transit is an economic win-win for communities."

To read the full report, complete with data, charts and more insights, please click here.

About Redfin

Redfin is the next-generation real estate brokerage, combining its own full-service agents with modern technology to redefine real estate in the consumer's favor. Founded by software engineers, Redfin has the country's #1 brokerage website and offers a host of online tools to consumers, including the Redfin Estimate, the automated home-value estimate with the industry's lowest published error rate. Homebuyers and sellers enjoy a full-service, technology-powered experience from Redfin real estate agents, while saving thousands in commissions. Redfin serves more than 80 major metro areas across the U.S. The company has closed more than $40 billion in home sales through 2016.