The effect of farmers' market access on residential property values

Improving farmers' market accessibility is increasingly being used as a mechanism to promote healthy food consumption. Previous studies about farmers' markets largely focused on describing either the demographics of market patrons or the impact of market participation on fruit and vegetable intake. Thus, little empirical research has examined how market accessibility impacts nearby communities. The goal of this study is to assess whether consumers value farmers' market accessibility by exploiting preferences revealed through housing purchases. Using residential sales data from 2007 to 2012 in five Central Maryland counties, we tested whether farmers' market accessibility is associated with housing prices by estimating hedonic models with temporal and neighborhood fixed effects. The results suggest an inverse association between housing prices and distance to the closest farmers' market, a relationship that remains statistically significant when using matching and instrumental variables estimators. The results also suggest that the association between market accessibility and housing prices is stronger in areas with poor-quality food environments. The findings are important to policy makers and planners because they suggest that farmers' market accessibility is valued by consumers in nearby communities and that consumers with limited access to food stores are willing to pay a premium for houses with access to farmers' markets. Assessing the mechanisms driving this association is an important area for future research.