Valuing Rural Recreation Amenities: Hedonic Prices for Vacation Rental Houses at Deep Creek Lake, Maryland

Hedonic prices are estimated for summer and winter rentals for vacation houses located near a lake and ski-golf resort in rural western Maryland. Regressions for weekly rents are conditioned on house size, quality, and recreation features including lakefront proximity and skislope access. Percentage effects and marginal implicit prices indicate that access to recreation is reflected importantly in rental offers. Evaluated at the means, lakefront locations command a premium of $1,100–1,200 per week, and the premium for ski-slope access is $500–600 per week. Unit recreation values are about $18 per person per day for a lakefront location with a private dock and $7 per person per day for a ski-slope location. There are small differences in the unit values for three real estate management agencies. Although there is evidence of spatial correlation in ordinary least squares residuals, estimation of spatial-lag and spatial-error models does not yield substantial changes in the empirical results.