The conventional wisdom used to be that living near a football ground depressed house prices given that you had to put up with crowds and traffic disruption on match days. I remember when Charlton were away from The Valley someone saying to me they hoped they wouldn’t come back as it would devalue their house.
The conventional wisdom used to be that living near a football ground depressed house prices given that you had to put up with crowds and traffic disruption on match days. I remember when Charlton were away from The Valley someone saying to me they hoped they wouldn’t come back as it would devalue their house.
However, research from Halifax shows that house prices close to Premier League grounds have increased on average from £136,300 in 2003 to £319,800 in 2013. This is equivalent to a rise of £50 a day and is double the 68 per cent rise in house prices recorded across England and Wales in the same period.
Homes in the same district as Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium did best rising by 259 per cent from an average of £24,894 to £89,489 today. Of course, some of that may be due to other regeneration efforts in East Manchester.
Properties around the stadium of Hull City Tigers came second with an average increase of 162 per cent, rising from £27,781 to £75,717. Of course, that was from a low baseline.
Chelsea and Fulham took third and fourth place with both recording average house prices of 102 per cent. One should note that London prices have risen more quickly than those in the country as a whole and both these clubs are located in high value areas. An average property in Chelsea and Fulham costs £851,812, more than 13 times the least expensive football district which is home to Everton and Liverpool. Values at Arsenal were up by 102 per cent.
The one exception to the general picture is Newcastle United where homes around St. James’s Park have dropped 11 per cent in value since 2003 to £135,251.
The biggest boost to prices has occurred where clubs have moved to new stadiums and that may reflect the improvements in infrastructure which are associated with the move such as better transport links.
Few fans, however, choose to live close to their club’s ground. Many of these increases reflect other factors and it is always risk to correlate two variables without controlling for other confounding ones. Looking at a postal district may also mask effects in close proximity to the ground.