Can ‘celebrity’ increase your property price?

There used to be a series called “Through the Keyhole“. I don’t know if you remember that? Anyway, there has been some research that appears to prove that if your house was lived in by a celebrity it puts the price up. Have a read: Ayton and colleagues report that “In many places commemorative plaques are erected on buildings to serve as historical markers of notable men and women who lived in them – London has a Blue Plaque scheme for this purpose.

We investigated the influence of commemorative Blue Plaques on the selling prices of London real estate. We identified properties which sold both before and after a Blue Plaque was installed indexing prices relative to the median prevailing sales prices of properties sold in the same neighbourhood. Relative prices increased by 27% (US$165,000 as of July 2020) after a Blue Plaque was installed but not in a control set of properties without Blue Plaques, sold both before and after a Blue Plaque was installed in close proximity.”

Peter Ayton, Leonardo Weiss-Cohen, and Matthew Barson.  “Magical Contagion and Commemorative Plaques:  Effects of Celebrity Occupancy on Property Values.”  Journal of Environmental Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101723