Austin Street Names - Will Real Estate Prices Be Changed By Politically Incorrect Street Names

We're in the process of purchasing some lots in Oak Hill with a few other buyers but they do not like the name of the street and want the developer to have it changed. The name of the street is "Sisquoc," which I believe is a cool name. The Californian Chumash Indians say that Sisquoc means stopping place. There's a river in California that they call Sisquoc River. The other buyers are having a hard time saying and spelling it. Jeez, give me a break! The street is currently being renamed to "San Lucas."

Anyway, this got me thinking about names of the streets in Austin, and the reality that plenty of streets have names that are more disagreeable than Sisquoc. Some streets in Shady Hollow which is a subdivision in South Austin have names such as "Gun Fight," "Ammunition," "Six Gun," "Shotgun," and "Shoot Out."

I asked Sylvia whether she would get a house on a street that has a name like "Gun Fight" or "Shoot Out" and she said "No way!" I wonder whether a left wing liberal would give up the home of his dreams if it just happened to be located on "George W. Bush Blvd"? Brisket Lane might not be a good home for a vegan. Will a loyal Christian Conservative not purchase a house on Devil's Cove? And therefore, would street names have an effect on the desirability and marketability of homes if the name is something a person could be offended? I decided to look further.

Using an MLS search, I was able to get info about the homes in Shady Hollow bought since 2000 that have gun-related street names. As much as 71 homes were bought on those streets. In dollars, 179,677 is the sales price on the average with $98 per square foot. The next search was done with homes that were not built after 1993 since they were costly to build. There were 606 sales of homes with less overt western names. In dollars, 225,713 is the sales price on the average with $103 per square foot. It seems that the homes with names that are politically incorrect do not sell for as much compared to other homes in the same area.

The interesting fact, however,is that the homes which are politically incorrect sold at an average of 37 days while the others took 50 days on the average to sell. This seems contrary to what one would intuitively expect if we base it on the gap in their prices. The politically incorrect homes were an average of 1811 square feet while the others averaged only 2144 square feet, which would account for the sales price gap. But homes with smaller lot size, more or less, are sold for a higher per-square-foot price, and in this case they do not, which suggests something is not right.

This might not appear to be an exact science. Nevertheless, the buyer has to put into consideration the name of the street which may or may not have an effect on the home's marketability in the future.