Study: Marijuana Dispensaries Increase Home Values by 7.7%

The opening of marijuana dispensaries is positively linked with rising neighborhood home values, according to a new study published in the journal Contemporary Economic Policy.

Researchers at Colorado State University studied the impact of dispensaries opening in Denver on home prices in the immediate vicinity, NORML reports.

“[A] new dispensary opening increases house prices by 7.7 percent for houses within a 0.25-mile radius of a dispensary relative to a control group,” researchers stated. “For houses within a 0.25 – 0.5-mile radius, the effect is slightly lower at around 5 percent. … The treatment effect is also larger, around ten percent, for homes with no preexisting dispensaries nearby.”

Dispensaries appear to have little or no effect on home prices if the home is located more than half a mile away.

“Our results, combined with previous estimates in the literature provide a comprehensive analysis of the effect of marijuana dispensing on housing prices,” and our “findings suggest that legalization and dispensary openings create localized net benefits,” the researchers concluded.