The more sunshine a house gets, the higher its value, research says
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A home's value increases by 2.4% for every hour of sunlight it gets, according to latest study from Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
Motu is an independent, non-profit economic and public policy research institute based in New Zealand.
Most developers understand the value of sunshine but putting a value on it opens up a new way of thinking for city planners, Motu senior fellow and co-author of the study Arthur Grimes said.
"Instead of having inflexible height regulations and setbacks and building envelopes and things like that, they can be more flexible and say 'If you're going to build a property next to another and it's going to block their sunlight, you need to pay them off,’” Grimes said as quoted in Radio NZ.
The study was conducted through observations of the sale of over 5,000 houses in metropolitan Wellington between 2008 and 2014 and was collected during the National Science Challenge “Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities”.
Meanwhile, Property Council New Zealand chief executive Connal Townsend told Radio NZ that New Zealand's planning regulations are very inflexible.
"The way that our district plans and indeed the whole RMA [Resource Management Act] mechanism works at the moment is incredibly inflexible, it's blunt and quite brutal.”
"The problem with our district planning and RMA approach is site coverage and building heights are a proxy for everything. It's blanket, it's set … it's so utterly contradictory to try and achieve the targets we want to achieve."
"In some cases, developers, with the help of Vancouver City Council, have gone to other owners and said 'Okay, you don't want me to build the condo, but I've got approval under the plan so can we do some deals? Would you like a public library? Would you like a play centre?"
For the country to move in a similar direction, New Zealand property market can take advantage of this "proxy" figure as a guide, Townsend said.
The research, Motu said, is the first study to give sunshine a price tag in the property market.
