A body of water adds some idyll to a home — and a lot of value. Here’s what a nearby lake or ocean does to home prices. One of the biggest indicators of a high-value home is easy to see. All you have to do is look for water.
Across the country, the typical singlefamily lakefront or oceanfront home is worth double the median value of all homes, according to an analysis from Zillow. According to the Zillow report, the median single-family American home was worth about $171,600, while the median waterfront home was worth $370,900, a premium of more than 116 percent. In some communities across the country the premium can be several hundred percent.
The Zillow analysis looked at homes located 150 feet or closer to the waterline of an ocean or lakes with a total square size of at least 10 square kilometers; properties separated from direct waterfront by a road with a speed limit of 25 mph or less still were considered waterfront. The median price was calculated by looking at all single-family waterfront properties in a given community. Tampa, Fla., had the largest waterfront premium, according to Zillow, which looked at 250 cities for the analysis. There the median single-family home was $125,300, while the median waterfront home was $1,043,700, a premium of 733 percent. Honolulu, Hawaii (334.5 percent), Long Beach, Calif. (321.6 percent), and Cleveland, Ohio (314.4) were other ultra-high waterfront premium cities. Laguna Beach, Calif., had the highest overall median waterfront home value at just more than $10 million. On the other end of the spectrum, waterfront properties were the least expensive in Holiday, Fla., where the median value was $103,000.