Are you in the market to buy a home?
There’s an old saying in real estate: “Location, location, location.” And while homebuyers often focus on square footage, updated kitchens, renovated bathrooms, and beautiful landscaping, the property’s location can have an even greater influence on its market value.
Not surprisingly, the closer you are to where the action is the higher the cost per square footage. But what If you could sleep, work, or watch movies during a 90-minute commute? The drive may no longer feel like a major inconvenience.
That could encourage families to move farther from cities, increasing demand for distant suburban and rural properties. Meanwhile, some expensive neighborhoods whose primary advantage is proximity to employment centers could lose part of that advantage.
FACT: Self-driving cars are expected to become mainstream in urban robotaxi fleets between 2030 and 2035, while fully autonomous personal cars will take longer to dominate the market, according to USA Today.
Of course, there’s always the possibility of extra traffic. If a one-hour trip becomes two hours, due to all of the non-drivers’ access to self-driving vehicles, the opposite may happen and demand could tick up for homes in close proximity to where the action is.
Prediction: Autonomous vehicles, when they are mainstream, will eventually reshape real estate values, population migration, and the geographic divide between urban and rural America.
And either way, self-driving cars will impact real estate prices. Homes a mere hop, skip, and a jump from where all the action will be a bit more affordable – or we’ll see an uptick in their value.
In the end, it’ll depend on the area and how much trip time traffic increases will add.
