Birdie or Bogey? How Golf Course Construction Affects Surrounding Home Values

Abstract

When asked to think about the how building a golf course can affect a commu- nity, many people’s first thought may jump to the environmental impacts that such construction has on the surrounding area. However, the economic interplay between a course and its surrounding community can be significant. Despite this fact, the popularity of the sport of golf, and the prevalence of golf course across the U.S., relatively little is truly known about how course development may impact economic outcomes of the surrounding area. While golf enthusiasts suggest that courses serve as amenities for residents and raise home values, I find, using a novel panel dataset with newly developed difference-in-differences methods, that the effects may indeed be opposite. Specifically, my results show that the development of a golf course lowers housing values of the surrounding census tract by 2.7% of average home values. Public, private, and municipal courses lower home prices by 2.2%, 4.1%, and 2.7%, respectively. These results may help guide policy-making decision by local governments and be of interest to residents, developers, and investors as well.