What’s Driving Price?

New home price estimator shows what features affect price and offers a glimpse into what the average home looks like

A newly updated economic model developed by the National Association of Home Builders enables builders, developers, prospective buyers and owners see the impact of various features and neighborhood characteristics might have on home price.

Based on the four principal Census regions of the country, the NAHB online house price estimator finds house prices to be higher in the Northeast and West regions of the country, in addition to central cities and suburbs. Home prices tend to be lowest in homes built outside of a metro area, though some regional variation exists regardless of urban status.

The standard new single-family detached home is defined by the following features, based primarily on averages or medians from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction:

• 2,150 square feet of living space

• Two full bathrooms and one half-bath

• Three bedrooms

• Garage (found in 70 percent of single-family homes built since the mid-1980s)

• Central air conditioning (found in 90 percent of single-family homes)

• Fireplace, which was in more than 50 percent of homes since 1974 up until 2010, when it dipped slightly below 50 percent

• A separate dining room, which the 2009 American Housing Survey found in 2.2 million out of 3.8 million new owner-occupied housing units

• Three miscellaneous rooms

• Satisfactory shopping – grocery or drug stores – within 15 minutes of the community or neighborhood, which the AHS found reported by 90 percent of homeowners

The single-family detached house price estimator can be found at www.nahb.org/housepriceestimator