The Value of Neighborhood and Property Tree Canopy Across Different Property Values for Residential Resales in San Antonio, Texas

Previous research shows that neighborhood trees promote housing premiums, but property tree may not. This paper expands the research by measuring the value that property and neighborhood tree canopy add to home sale price. Rather than treating the entire city as the analysis area, we break the city...

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Main Authors: Ryun Jung Lee, Thomas A. Thomson
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2025-12-01
Series:Journal of Sustainable Real Estate
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/19498276.2025.2461833
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author Ryun Jung Lee
Thomas A. Thomson
author_facet Ryun Jung Lee
Thomas A. Thomson
author_sort Ryun Jung Lee
collection DOAJ
description Previous research shows that neighborhood trees promote housing premiums, but property tree may not. This paper expands the research by measuring the value that property and neighborhood tree canopy add to home sale price. Rather than treating the entire city as the analysis area, we break the city into four Areas based on average house selling price and evaluate the canopy results by Area. We employ the 1 m resolution tree canopy data from the 2017 LiDAR, from which we extract the percentage of tree canopy on each property, and the percentage of tree canopy for the block group in which the sale took place (which we use as our neighborhood measure). We employ a semi log hedonic pricing model to analyze about 41,500 existing home sales to estimate the value of tree canopy. Our results show that in the Area with the lowest property values, either higher or lower than median tree canopy results in properties selling for less than the average canopy. For more valuable Areas, having less than median tree canopy generally reduces sale value while having more than median canopy increases sale value. We find this generally holds for both property canopy, and neighborhood canopy.
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spelling doaj-art-3c01aca73cf3457e800631ee98c41d3e2025-08-20T02:30:03ZengTaylor & Francis GroupJournal of Sustainable Real Estate1949-82761949-82842025-12-0117110.1080/19498276.2025.2461833The Value of Neighborhood and Property Tree Canopy Across Different Property Values for Residential Resales in San Antonio, TexasRyun Jung Lee0Thomas A. Thomson1School of Architecture and Planning, The University of Texas, San Antonio, TX, USADepartment of Finance, Alvarez College of Business, The University of Texas, San Antonio, TX, USAPrevious research shows that neighborhood trees promote housing premiums, but property tree may not. This paper expands the research by measuring the value that property and neighborhood tree canopy add to home sale price. Rather than treating the entire city as the analysis area, we break the city into four Areas based on average house selling price and evaluate the canopy results by Area. We employ the 1 m resolution tree canopy data from the 2017 LiDAR, from which we extract the percentage of tree canopy on each property, and the percentage of tree canopy for the block group in which the sale took place (which we use as our neighborhood measure). We employ a semi log hedonic pricing model to analyze about 41,500 existing home sales to estimate the value of tree canopy. Our results show that in the Area with the lowest property values, either higher or lower than median tree canopy results in properties selling for less than the average canopy. For more valuable Areas, having less than median tree canopy generally reduces sale value while having more than median canopy increases sale value. We find this generally holds for both property canopy, and neighborhood canopy.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/19498276.2025.2461833Property and neighborhood tree canopygreen spaceproperty valueshousing premiumsocioeconomic
spellingShingle Ryun Jung Lee
Thomas A. Thomson
The Value of Neighborhood and Property Tree Canopy Across Different Property Values for Residential Resales in San Antonio, Texas
Journal of Sustainable Real Estate
Property and neighborhood tree canopy
green space
property values
housing premium
socioeconomic
title The Value of Neighborhood and Property Tree Canopy Across Different Property Values for Residential Resales in San Antonio, Texas
title_full The Value of Neighborhood and Property Tree Canopy Across Different Property Values for Residential Resales in San Antonio, Texas
title_fullStr The Value of Neighborhood and Property Tree Canopy Across Different Property Values for Residential Resales in San Antonio, Texas
title_full_unstemmed The Value of Neighborhood and Property Tree Canopy Across Different Property Values for Residential Resales in San Antonio, Texas
title_short The Value of Neighborhood and Property Tree Canopy Across Different Property Values for Residential Resales in San Antonio, Texas
title_sort value of neighborhood and property tree canopy across different property values for residential resales in san antonio texas
topic Property and neighborhood tree canopy
green space
property values
housing premium
socioeconomic
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/19498276.2025.2461833
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