For decades, economists have examined the myriad variables that affect real estate value, from individual house characteristics to neighborhood amenities. Yet one variable, weather, has attracted little attention thus far. This is true despite widespread agreement that much of a home’s value rests on curb appeal, or how a home looks from the street, which could significantly change based on weather. Given that housing stock is the main store of wealth for many households, it is important to understand what impact climate can have on asset value. I utilize a large data set that comprises 185,000 sales of 96,000 single-family homes to ascertain the effect of various weather conditions on house prices. By using a fixed effects framework that isolates intra-property price changes, time-invariant omitted variable bias is accounted for, and the causal effect of weather on home prices can plausibly be determined. In the winter, the results indicate cold weather is associated with an increase in price. In the summer, precipitation affects price, but the sign and magnitude of the impact depend on the temperature. The magnitudes are small but highly statistically significant. These results show that home buyers and sellers are affected by temporary weather conditions.

几十年来，经济学家研究了影响房地产价值的无数变量，从个人房屋特征到邻里便利设施。到目前为止，天气这一变量几乎没有引起人们的注意。尽管人们普遍认为房屋的大部分价值取决于路边的吸引力或房屋的外观，但事实还是如此，这可能会因天气而发生很大变化。鉴于住房存量是许多家庭的主要财富储备，因此了解气候对资产价值的影响非常重要。我利用一个庞大的数据集，该数据集包含95,000套单户住宅的185,000套销售，以确定各种天气条件对房价的影响。通过使用隔离属性内价格变化的固定效应框架，可以考虑时不变的遗漏变量偏差，可以确定天气对房价的因果关系。在冬季，结果表明寒冷的天气与价格上涨有关。在夏季，降水会影响价格，但影响的迹象和程度取决于温度。数量级较小，但具有高度统计意义。这些结果表明，购房者和卖者受到临时天气条件的影响。