How Streets Shape Home Values: A Fresh Look

In the bustling city of Seoul, the price of a home can be influenced by more than just its size or location. The look and feel of the streets surrounding a home can play a big role. This is something that traditional methods of predicting house prices might miss. So, a recent study took a closer look at how the visual appeal of streets affects the price of single-family homes. To do this, researchers used a mix of computer vision and machine learning. They gathered data from over 13, 000 home sales between 2017 and 2019. To understand what streets look like at eye level, they used hundreds of thousands of Google Street View images. These images were analyzed using a deep-learning model called Deeplab V3+. The goal was to find the best way to predict home prices. They compared different machine-learning models and found that the Gradient Boost model did the best job. This model is known for its ability to handle complex data and find patterns that other models might miss. But how do these models work? Often, they are seen as "black boxes" because it's hard to understand how they make predictions. To solve this, the study used an interpretable machine-learning model called SHAP. This model helps identify key features that affect home price predictions. One of the cool things about this study is that it looked at how different aspects of streets interact with each other to influence home prices. For example, the presence of trees, the width of sidewalks, and the style of buildings can all work together to make a street more or less appealing. This is something that traditional models might not capture as well. The study also found that the relationship between streetscapes and home prices is not always straightforward. Sometimes, small changes in the streetscape can have a big impact on home prices. This is important for homeowners, buyers, and even city planners to understand. In the end, this study shows that the visual appeal of streets is an important factor in determining home prices. By using advanced technology, researchers were able to get a clearer picture of how streets shape the value of homes. This can help people make better decisions when buying or selling a home. It can also guide cities in designing streets that not only look good but also add value to the homes around them.