Home Value Is Determined By The Beholder: BENN

The measure of the value of a home is a function of many inputs.

An acquaintance spent a great deal of effort defining the features they wanted. Of importance to them was that the home have a backyard with a southern exposure, large enough to accommodate a swimming pool.

It took a few years, but an existing home with the right combination of features became available. They purchased the home, renovated it, added the pool and related outdoor amenities.

Then the city rezoned the properties to the immediate south to permit a six-storey building. As a result, they lost the benefits of a southern exposure and the privacy of using their backyard. The value of their home was diminished in their eyes. By how much? No one can state definitively because they did not have an offer on the table before the rezoning, nor have they sold the house to date.

Every other method of valuation other than a closed sale is just an educated estimation. Valuations can be easily skewed up or down with a slight change in a value-driving variable.

Some realtors point to increased property values for communities when mixed densities are introduced after the fact. However, this generally refers to the neighbourhood as a whole, as contrasted with the homes that are directly impacted. It is also not clear how much of the increase in value that the realtors cite is just the natural increase in value of homes, or how much is due specifically to the introduction of another form of housing. Would the value of the homes in the affected neighbourhood have risen more or less had the new form of housing not been introduced?

There is no right answer, any more so that whether I can state absolutely that the special shampoo I use has reduced the rate of my hair loss, or not. What I can say is my hair line has receded.

Value is in the eye of the beholder and generalities are just that.

Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.

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