Influence of Natural Amenities on Residential Property Values in a Rural Setting

Hedonic pricing has been used to identify values of nonmarket natural resource amenities. Most of these studies have been completed in suburban or urban communities rather than rural areas. The hedonic pricing study presented here includes developed residential parcel transactions occurring in a rural county in Michigan. We develop two hedonic pricing models using transaction data for two rural residentialparcel types: developedparcels located in subdivisions, and developedparcels not located in subdivisions. Proximity to lakes and subdivision open areas positively affected the values of some parcel types, while proximity to forested land, publicly owned land, streams, and a National Scenic River did not have apositive influence. Results found in this study completed in a rural setting contrast with the results of other studies completed in suburban and urban settings.