The Impact of Gunfire on Residential Property Values

Hedonic studies of home prices routinely attribute lower home prices to perceived undesirable attributes of the property sold. A steady stream of literature finds criminal behavior is negatively capitalized into residential real estate prices. This study focuses on the effects of geocoded gunfire incidents on residential property sale prices while controlling for other amenities and disamenities at the census-block group level. The findings of an analysis of 5,652 gunfire incidents, involving nearly 25,000 rounds of gunfire, and 5,292 real estate transactions in Savannah, Georgia over five years indicate spatial and temporal proximity of gunfire incidents reduces residential home prices. The effect of gunfire on sale prices is greater when it occurs in the immediate vicinity of the property and closer to the date of the real estate listing. Heterogeneous effects on sale prices were found to be present across time and space when intensity was measured by the number of days with gunfire incidents and to a lesser extent when intensity was measured by the number of shots fired in each incident