The impact of public lands and public land timber harvesting on private property values in Michigan

The influence that publicly-owned land has on nearby private property values has not been studied. Externalities of public land may have an effect on nearby private property values. This study applies hedonic regression analysis to real property transactions of property near public land in Michigan to measure the effect of public land and public land timber harvesting on private property values. The results demonstrate that the percent of public land surrounding private property positively impacts developed property values. The impact of distance to federal public land on private property is found to positively affect vacant property values. The closer that vacant properties are to federal public land, the more they are worth. Adjacent vacant property values are negatively affected by the presence of federal public land relative to state land. Public land timber harvesting is not found to have any statistical impact on adjacent property values.