Impact of Historic District Designation on Housing
Prices
Jason J. Altieri and Martin Heintzelman
School of Business/Honors Program
We examine the impact that local historic district designation has on the prices of homes both in and near
a district. Our data consists of home sales and historic districts within the greater Boston-QuincyCambridge metropolitan area. We use census block and property level fixed effect regressions to evaluate
the effects of designation on prices. Census block level fixed effects suggest that historic districts
positively impact sales price both for houses in a district and those in close proximity. On the other hand,
the property level fixed effects imply that there is a negative price impact on houses located within a
district and provide conflicting results on homes that are nearby. The property level fixed effect model
not only gives us a better estimate of the true impact of historic districts on home prices, but it highlights
the methodological problems that exist within the census block level fixed effect model and several past
studies in this area.
2011, Financial Information and Analysis, Honors Summer Research, Professor Martin
Heintzelman