Incinerator Impacts on Residential Property Sales: Beyond Price Effects

Abstract

Municipal waste incinerators are commonly believed to affect residential property sales. In cases where property sales prices are not affected, sales of affected properties may increase because impact‐sensitive households can sell properties at full market value, and therefore do not incur monetary losses by moving. Alternatively, sellers can get full market prices if they are prepared to wait longer for buyers who are less sensitive or uninformed and who are therefore less likely to discount their offers due to facility impacts. Therefore, the absence of price depreciation is predicted to lead either to increased turnover or to longer time on the market to sell residential properties in the impact field of the incinerator. As a result, neighborhood stability may be affected. The predictions are tested with sales data from a rural host community with a modern mass‐burning grate incinerator where no significant sales price depreciation is found. Significant increases in property sales or resales do not occur and distance to the facility correlates very weakly with decreasing time to sell. The incinerator has only a moderate effect on residential real estate sales, and therefore does not cause destabilization of the community. This conclusion does not mean, however, that the residents do not experience losses as a result of bearing the incinerator impacts. Rather, the findings indicate that residents tend to stay and adapt to the facility.