A Sight for Sore Eyes : Assessing the Value of View and Landscape Use on the Housing Market

We apply the hedonic model to the Geneva-Switzerland rental market, in order to assess the value of view and landscape use. In that purpose, we construct a large database of about 10 500 observations containing dwellings structural characteristics and combine it with environmental variables on noise and local air pollution exposure. Then, we make use of the Geneva geographic information system (GIS), in order to define landscape uses and patterns in the neighbourhood of the buildings. Finally, we define several variables in order to quantify the view at the dwelling level. We find that accessibility to various environmental amenities, landscape use and size, as well as view on them have a statistically significant impact on rents. In particular, the size and the view on the natural environment increase rents, while they lower rents in the case of the built environment. We also find that diversity in landscape uses in the building neighbourhood has a negative impact on rents, while possessing a diverse view from the dwelling increases rents