Gigabit Internet Connections Make Property Values Rise 108
Jason Koebler writes: When families go to buy a new home, they're most often looking for a couple things: Good schools, a safe neighborhood, maybe something that's near public transportation. And, increasingly and undeniably, access to gigabit internet service. A study by RVA LLC Market Research and Consulting found that fiber optic internet adds roughly $5,250 to the value of a $300,000 home. "It's getting to the point where, if my neighboring community has a gig and we're still doing satellite, the property value in that town is going to go up," Deb Socia, director of Next Century Cities, a coalition of cities trying to provide gigabit internet speeds to their citizens, said. "You're going to lose people and you're going to lose revenue without it. I'm hearing it from folks in different chambers of commerce, in real estate, in politics."
Umm, how about a more meaningful comparsion? (Score:2)
"It's getting to the point where, if my neighboring community has a gig and we're still doing satellite, the property value in that town is going to go up," Deb Socia, director of Next Century Cities, a coalition of cities trying to provide gigabit internet speeds to their citizens, said. "You're going to lose people and you're going to lose revenue without it.
So she's equating high latency capped satellite service against gigabit fiber? Well duh. It would be more interesting to see if average people would really be willing to pay that $2,500 premium if the choice was between DOCSIS 3 service and fiber service. Or even between reasonably fast DSL vs. fiber. It's been my experience that there's not much difference for the typical user (hint: /.'ers are not typical) once speeds exceed 5mbit/s. What's the practical difference between the higher D3 tiers (say 50
Re:Umm, how about a more meaningful comparsion? (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's increasingly going to be about multiple users or automated users though
I've heard the multiple users argument before; I'm not unsympathetic to it, though I do have to wonder about the fairness of a price structure that charges the household with five simultaneous HD video streams the same as the household with zero or one HD video streams. Note that I'm not arguing in favor of caps; they're a blunt and ineffective solution (moved bytes don't cost the ISP money, but sustained bit-rate does) but I've often wondered why demand or 95th percentile billing wouldn't be fair.
There's
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It took some time to figure out how to use up DSL and cablemodem bandwidth, and now that we have that we've found ways to use even more than it can provide.
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IPTV on demand is really the worst delivery system possible for video; virtually every delivery system that preceded it relied on the efficiency of point-to-multipoint, be it over the air television, CATV, or satellite. Now we're faced with a system that's going to send a discrete copy of House of Cards down the pipe for every one of the tens of millions of people that request it, even for those people that request it at virtually the same time.
I suppose it was inevitable, even a 1 GHz CATV plant can't co
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That's a very interesting concept; I suspect it's years away and by that time the bandwidth argument will be moot, although perhaps not since the trend seems to be for ever increasing video resolution. You've clearly given this more thought than I have; I'm not much of a video person and have largely contented myself with OTA + TiVo. I don't even really supplement with IPTV all that much, except for those times when I have company over that insists on watching some movie or another, which I usually end up
Re: Umm, how about a more meaningful comparsion? (Score:2)
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*NO* You were paying $20/month for the phone line. As modems increased in speed, from 300 baud, to 2400 baud to 14.4k to 56k, *YOU DID NOT PAY MORE FOR THE PHONE LINE*
Most ISPs also did not charge a differential between a 56k modem and a 14.4k modem or a 2400 baud modem.
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Replacing TV tuners and Cable boxes should not be what we envision the Internet to become.
Why not?
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If you proposed a $5000 hookup-tax for internet (Score:4, Interesting)
You'd probably have most of the villagers at the town hall with pitchforks and torches. Funny how we want the services and value, but almost nobody is willing to pay what it's worth to get it.
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The trick is to get the Federal gov't to subsidize it, then vote "the tax-and-spend bums" out as a reward. Works every time.
yesterday. Different kind of bums in January (Score:2, Funny)
We got rid of the tax-and-spend bums yesterday. Starting in January, we'll have another type of bums in Washington. With this type, we can expect economic improvement - more business being done, and thus more jobs and *gasp* profit from the stuff those jobs produce.
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What exactly are they going to do to improve the economy? Deregulation broke it in 2007 (of which Democrat B. Clinton gets some of the blame per banking dereg).
several things, historically always (but 2008) (Score:2)
You're probably familiar with various differences between the policies each party supports. What you may not be aware of is that since the great depression, economic growth has ALWAYS improved over the period of every republican president's budgets, and always gotten worse of the course of every democrat president. The one exception is the 2008 housing crash.
People can argue forever about fairness and a number of other things, but this is simply a fact- the economy always improves with republicans in c
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Link? I'm skeptical. Plus, the budget is a negotiated item, not something the prez makes/controls alone.
data here and here (Score:2)
The official data on economic growth can be found here:
http://www.bea.gov/national/xl... [bea.gov]
A chart matching growth with president's budget's can be found here for 1964-2006. Not shown on that chart is 2008, which is
http://bettercgi.com/tmp/econo... [bettercgi.com]
Again, the numbers and chart don't tell us anything about fairness, social justice, or any other issues. It simply shows that "pro-business" republican policies have been good for the economy. This trend shouldn't be surprising - we'd expect government spending on a
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Your numbers look dodgy to me. I'll have to check them against other sources on the weekend.
Note that Reagan had a pretty big "stimulus" in his defense buildup.
look again, Dow still lower than 2000 in constant (Score:2)
Have another look. In real terms, the Dow still isn't as high as it was in 2000. Devaluing the dollar is actually a _bad_ thing. Soon, the markets will probably get back to the same level as fourteen years ago, inflation adjusted.
Dow rallied 100 points on election news (Score:2)
If you want to go by the markets, the market has rallied on the news of the republican wins, with the Dow up 100 points today. That is a record high, if you ignore inflation. In real terms, the markets are still lower than they were fourteen years ago, in 2000.
yesterday. Different kind of bums in January (Score:1)
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And they'd be right to do it, because 5000 dollars is way excessive to apply at once, much smarter to amortize the costs (which will usually be less than 5,000 dollars), over the life of the system.
Y'know, the sane way to do things.
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It is regulated by local governments [wired.com] — like those "utilities" — and that's why it sucks like them too.
It should be open to competition — along with electricity and sewers. Unfortunately, too many still believe the "natural monopoly" myth [mises.org], that the governments love to perpetuate...
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Both of you say "regulation" and yet, both of you mean different things. Isn't ideas and language a wonderful thing?
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I meant the same thing he did — even if it is not immediately obvious to some. The two meanings are two sides of the same coin.
The government's power to regulate in the "good" sense of the word (that statists like the AC above have in mind) inevitably means the abuses I am talking about.
As a wise man said [monticello.org] long ago: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.".
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A government small enough to be a Libertarian wet dream
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So run by the city and billed on a meter?
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Many, probably most, municipalities have hookup fees for water and sewer. There's an initial feel and sometimes an added amortization fee on your bill as well because even the per-user cost of building a water treatment plan is enormous. I think I heard that Blacksburg, Virginia's hookup fees are in the $25,000 per house range. Some places have a school fee (more homes = more students, statistically speaking) to help cover the cost of building out education facilities. With a typical 3-school strand costing
Re:If you proposed a $5000 hookup-tax for internet (Score:5, Interesting)
I would pay $5k tomorrow for fiber provided that the fiber installed could be serviced by any number of providers that i can select at will, without contract or obligation.
If comcast or att want it, I will not line up at town hall with torches and pitchforks, I will ram them up the offending CEOs more intelligent end while slapping the other end across the face with my terms of service.
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Well the median US home costs $189k (pdf) [huffingtonpost.com] so a $300k home is far into the upper half, where customers can afford to be picky about what they want. It's not like it would bring $5k value to every home nor would it be worth as much if it were more commonplace. Right now it's a fairly exclusive feature that can add a nice premium because it specifically attracts tech-oriented people who want it. It doesn't take that much to make a bidding war on a $300k home go $5k further if it's particularly attractive to so
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However those are also the people that many cities want to attract.
One of the satellite cities round here is developing city wide municipal fiber and expects to have everyone connected in a few years time. I'm not looking to move at the moment, but it is a decent factor that will put them in the running for our next home.
Personally I chose my current home, in part, because i could get 50mbit/s from comcast, 40mbit/sec from centurytel, good 4g and two fixed wireless providers. I'm also less than 20' from the
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If you proposed a $5000 hookup-tax for internet You'd probably have most of the villagers at the town hall with pitchforks and torches. Funny how we want the services and value, but almost nobody is willing to pay what it's worth to get it.
What if you proposed giving millions of dollars and local monopolies to telecommunications companies to improve their infrastructure and all you got in return was shitty service at astronomical prices?
If you proposed a $5000 hookup-tax for internet (Score:2)
Well 5000 amortized over the life of a 30 year mortgage is only like 20 bucks a month. Who in their right mind wouldn't pay an extra 20 a month for gigabit ethernet?
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$5000 is probably a huge under-estimate. A lot of people wouldn't buy houses that hat only satellite internet connection, or very poor ADSL. Some houses in the UK are more or less worthless because they can't get reasonable internet service.
It reminds me of articles saying that Japanese Knotweed will take thousands off the value of your house. In reality it will make it worthless because most banks won't offer people mortgages on it and even if you pay to have it eradicated from your land it will just come
Kansas City - not the best market to look at (Score:2, Flamebait)
Do the study in a real housing market like DC or NYC or San Fran - then we'll see if the theory holds water.
Some backwater with a 2.7% rise in values is definitely not worth the time to even research.
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High crime, unemployment.....I believe I could statistically prove the NYC and DC area are indeed "shitholes" if allowed a definition of such.. The demographics of the San Fran area are well known, if you are offended by my use of slang words for some of them that's too bad.
Re:Kansas City - not the best market to look at (Score:4, Interesting)
>Some backwater with a 2.7% rise in values is definitely not worth the time to even research.
If that backwater had gigabit fiber and a $50K houses, I could buy 4 for cash and live there off the rental income from the other 3.
I couldn't live there without the interwebs though.
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When I was looking for a place in Cambridge/Boston, the (few) places with FiOS access (as opposed to being stuck with Comcast) were sure to put it on the fliers or MLS descriptions. So I assume people cared.
Of course, FiOS around here is arguably worse than Comcast, which is saying something, but at least you have options if you live in one of those spots.
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I bought a house seven years ago in the Boston area -- I was one of the home buyers who had been burned by cable companies sufficiently often that my wife and I agreed that we just wouldn't look at any house without FIOS. I'm sure it added to the cost, though since we considered it a "must have", we never bothered finding a similar house without it to see how much it added.
We were definitely in the "well off, two-engineers-income" bracket, with internet usage patterns resulting from two geeky engineers; th
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Re:Statistical Anomaly? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not how statistics works. If their sample size is large enough then, yes, it may be possible to determine that a good internet connection gives your house an increase in value of 2%.
And why shouldn't it? Small improvements like putting in a nice jacuzzi tub to make the bathroom nicer can also be shown to have single-digit-of-a-percent increase in value.
Additionally, I think it's more believable because it's such a small percent. If people were willing to spend 25% more, that'd be pretty crazy, right? 2% is something someone might not care about over a 30 year mortgage.
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Well it's actually more like cutting off a pool of buyers.
Just like someone with a physical disability might immediately eliminate all homes with stairs. Someone who works from home will immediately eliminate all home with crappy internet access.
I'd pay 100% less for a home that doesn't have good internet access.
Meh (Score:4, Funny)
I'd still rather have a strip club nearby. Also ready access to marijuana.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd still rather have a strip club nearby. Also ready access to marijuana.
Fortunately for you, the supply and demand curves will provide you with much cheaper housing.
Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
All those that talk about "location location location" really mean "the things you can't change". Interior, exterior, garden, floor plan, pretty much anything can be redone but you're stuck with your surroundings. And you're usually stuck with a crappy Internet connection. And despite most people not getting around to changing all they'd like to change, they kind of know they could. Things you can't fix tend to gnaw at you a lot more. I'm probably more Internet-addicted than the average person but I don't think I'd want to live at any place with <10 Mbit/s Internet. Unless it's a tropical island or something, then I'd make concessions. Or put up a big satellite dish, not really sure.
Crapco outed? (Score:1)
Does that mean Comcast et al will get the boot from more municipalities?
Why Aren't Homebuilders in on This? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Homebuilders are more interested in doing shady property deals with local government and sourcing the cheapest crappiest lumber. I don't think structuring internet services it really a big part of their mind space.
I've seen home builders touting Comcast as a feature.
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When renovating our rental properties, we paid for an Ethernet-jack in every room. The runs were terminating in a single closet allowing tenants to hook up to the DSL- or cable "modem" of their choice. Don't know, how much the feature helped us raise in rent, but pretty sure, it helped some.
The "coordinating with raw internet providers" part, however, is made difficult — even for buildings large enough — by the regulatory burden imposed by the local governments [wired.com], who use their (unjust) power to
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What does a homebuilder care about Comcast? $5000 for properly run, terminated, and coordinated fiber per house vs. $0 to offer Comcast. At the end of a small builder's 20 home year, means $100,000 different in the builders pocket (or boat, or vacation home, or wife's new boobs). I work with these people, and they don't give a shit unless it puts money directly in their pocket.
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Cost. It's the same reason they don't install solar PV or reasonable insulation or an adequate number of power sockets or ethernet/coax to every room.
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One of the first things I checked (Score:2)
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Security and safety of my children came first, of course. Can the home(s) I'm looking at be connected to high-speed internet service was near the top of the list though. I have access to Cox and FiOS up to 150Mb, which meets my needs for the immediate future. Gigabit would be nice to have though...
When I purchased my house, I wrote availability of high speed Internet into the contract. This was 10 years ago at a time when the phone company would not tell you in advance if a particular address has DSL service available; the only way to know for sure was to put in an install order. My real estate agent whined that I couldn't put that in an offer, but I said, "Yes, I can. It is a contract and I can put in anything I want." I put it into the contract, ordered the DSL service, and once the DSL was turned
YouDontSay.JPG (Score:5, Interesting)
I just bought my forever house and had a few beautiful places picked out but had to change my search area because internet access sucked balls everywhere in that area. At best, I could get "up to" 3mbps DSL at a couple locations. Now I know why prices were so much lower in that area. And the realtors I talked to said "What kind of internet is available?" is one of the first questions people ask these days. Of course, when I asked that question, none of them could answer it.
So I shifted my search closer to The Big City where I got cable internet and almost as much privacy.
As for the value of internet, I was ready to spend up to 10 grand to improve infrastructure to the right property so figure that into the equation however you will.
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Don't you think though, with a "forever" house, waiting a few years for bigger, faster internet would be worth it?
I think it's inevitable.
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As usual, I'm ahead of my time. Human hibernation is still in its infancy so I had no practical way to "just wait" for communications infrastructure to catch up.
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And the realtors I talked to said "What kind of internet is available?" is one of the first questions people ask these days.
Ugh, don't trust the realtor with that answer! I bought a $700k house in Seattle, and the real estate agent lied and said Comcast was available when I first looked at the house. I found-out after buying it that Comcast doesn't offer service to my house since their buried cable was damage and the city wouldn't allow them to repair it. I have no cable TV so I can't watch ESPN. I'm pissed about that. I'm more pissed about being stuck with dial-up. I can't afford to move just to get cable TV and Internet
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Sue the realtor and the city.
Well, maybe not right off the bat. First, see if you can get it on the local version of Bite Back with Kent Brockman and his Channel 6 Consumer Watchdog Unit. Generally, the cable company's monopoly contract generally requires that they service every household in [specified_area]. If there's cable in the ground, it's because your neighborhood is part of that area and the cable company is required to service it. The city can't require them to provide service then deny them th
Tortious Interference (Score:2)
I'll never own a $300k home (Score:2)
because the Man owns me #wageslave
As long as its free to poor black people (Score:1)
I say why not. Obama is America's destiny.