The impact of community associations on residential property values

ABSTRACT

While community associations were relatively uncommon only a few decades ago, they now outnumber municipal governments in the United States. Since 1970, the number of community associations operating in the country has grown 30-fold representing approximately 24% of the US housing stock. Despite the rapid expansion of community associations, relatively little is known about their impact on residential property values. This research review addresses this issue by examining the extant academic literature to determine how and when the activities of community associations are capitalized into housing prices.

KEYWORDS:

• Community associations
• residential property values
• real estate
• community development
• governance
• community organization

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank the Foundation for Community Association Research for the grant awarded to support this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The author would like to thank the Foundation for Community Association Research for the grant awarded to support this research.

Notes on contributors

Erin A. Hopkins

Erin A. Hopkins is currently an assistant professor of Property Management and Real Estate within the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. Dr Hopkins comes to Virginia Tech with over 10 years of real estate experience across single-family, multi-family, retail, and office sectors. She received her undergraduate degree from James Madison University with a double major in accounting and finance and a minor in Spanish, a Master of Real Estate Development (MRED) degree at University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. from Seton Hall University. Her research interests include green building, building lifecycle analysis, built environment policy analysis, and property valuation. Her research can be found in publications such as the Journal of Sustainable Real Estate and the Journal of Real Estate Literature. In addition to her industry experience and research, Dr Hopkins has committed to teaching excellence by completing the New Faculty/Early Career Teaching Certificate program at Virginia Tech and being named Virginia Tech’s Teacher of the Week in 2015. She can be reached at [phone] or [email protected].