Homes jump in value if they’re located near highway sound barriers: study

Silence really is golden — and homeowners are willing to pay more for it. 

Specifically, when traffic noise fades, home values tend to creep up.

A new academic study by the National Bureau of Academic Research suggests that the simple act of quieting a highway can deliver an outsized payoff for nearby homeowners. 

By examining nearly 600,000 residential properties across Florida, researchers found that homes closest to newly installed sound barriers experienced a notable and durable jump in value once the walls went up.

The biggest gains accrued to properties nearest the noise buffers. 

In the five years following construction, homes within roughly 1,000 feet of a barrier posted price increases of nearly 7% compared with similar houses farther away. The benefit diminished steadily with distance, dropping to mid-single-digit gains about 1,000 feet out, and largely disappeared beyond about a quarter mile.

The findings underscore just how sensitive buyers are to the din of daily traffic. 

“Buyers are willing to pay a substantial premium for each decibel of noise reduction,” Enrico Moretti, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the study’s co-authors, told the Wall Street Journal. 

The research estimated that home values climb by almost 1% for every decibel of road noise reduced by a typical barrier.

To isolate the impact of sound alone, the researchers compared homes near highways with properties in the same neighborhoods located at least 1,600 feet away, where traffic noise is barely perceptible. 

Prior to construction, prices in both groups moved in lockstep, shaped by similar forces such as schools, crime and neighborhood upkeep. 

After the barriers were built, however, values for the closest homes jumped quickly and stayed elevated, exceeding normal market appreciation.

The authors also accounted for other possible explanations, including improved air quality and the visual shielding of highways, and still found noise reduction to be a decisive factor.

Expanding their analysis nationally, they estimated that traffic noise suppresses US residential property values by about $110 billion. 

The study then looked ahead. Modeling a hypothetical future in which every vehicle on American roads is electric, the researchers estimated that quieter engines alone could lift home values nationwide by more than $77 billion. 

In places where electric vehicles are already common, the effect is beginning to materialize. 

Santa Clara County, California, which leads the nation in EV adoption, saw an estimated $264 million boost to property values in 2023 linked to quieter streets.