1. Wind Turbines and their Effect on
House Values in Madison County
Steven Evans and Prof. Michael O’Hara
Colgate University
10/3/2014

2. Overview
• Is there any evidence to support the notion
that Madison County home sales are affected
by the windmills?

3. Overview
• Is there any evidence to support the notion
that Madison County home sales are affected
by the windmills?
– Sale price

4. Overview
• Is there any evidence to support the notion
that Madison County home sales are affected
by the windmills?
– Sale price
– Days on market

5. Overview
• Is there any evidence to support the notion
that Madison County home sales are affected
by the windmills?
– Sale price
– Days on market
• Pooled cross-sectional data from 2000-2014

6. Preliminary Results
• Sale price is reduced by an average between
12 and 18% up to four miles from the turbines
• No evidence of effect on time spent on the
market

7. Previous Literature
• Hoen 2006
– First to account for both distance and visibility

8. Previous Literature
• Hoen 2006
– First to account for both distance and visibility
• Hoen, Wiser, Cappers, Thayer, Sethi 2009
– National study using previous techniques

9. Previous Literature
• Hoen 2006
– First to account for both distance and visibility
• Hoen, Wiser, Cappers, Thayer, Sethi 2009
– National study using previous techniques
• Heinzelman, Tuttle 2012
– Study of turbine effects on homes in NY region

10. Previous Literature
• Hoen 2006
– First to account for both distance and visibility
• Hoen, Wiser, Cappers, Thayer, Sethi 2009
– National study using previous techniques
• Heinzelman, Tuttle 2012
– Study of turbine effects on homes in NY region
• Guignet 2014
– Homes that are hard to sell under-represented

11. Data
• Madison Country GIS parcel level data
– Locations and shapes of all parcels in Madison Co.
• Madison County GIS turbine locations
– Centroid locations and heights of all turbines
• Hamilton Real Estate Guild dataset
– Compiled real estate data from various local guilds

12. 7 Mile Radius

13. 7 Mile Radius

18. Preliminary Conclusion
• No significant effect of wind turbines on time
to sell
– Possibly due to adjusting prices allowing market to
clear
• Both number of turbines visible and the
distance to the nearest turbine have
significant effects on house values

19. Future Work
• Data Work
– TIER Protocol
• Adding a variable accounting for parcels
within one mile
• Village Dummies/ Spatial regressions
• Develop a Logit/Probit model that explores
probability of sale as dependent variable
– Possible future sample bias correction