Tunnel boring for rapid transit project (Credit: Province of BC - flickrCC)

Why should real estate professionals care about infrastructure investment? Infrastructure promotes prosperity and growth and it contributes to quality of life—including the social well-being, health, and safety of citizens. Bruce Turner posits that residential and non-residential property values implicitly reflect these factors, and infrastructure investment decisions may be better informed by considering their potential impact on property values.

“The current great concern over the need for whole-life asset management tends to create a public mindset focused on the massive cost of infrastructure. Real estate professionals can play a critical role in articulating the long-term benefits of infrastructure and their impact on property value. Developers, investors, homeowners, and municipalities gain from understanding the importance of infrastructure investment to preservation or enhancement of property values,” writes Turner.

Turner provides us with a suite of questions to use when considering infrastructure investment. Framed with property value in mind, these questions will assist decision makers and taxpayers who are concerned with preserving property values and sustainable wealth creation in their communities.

Download Spring 2016

To read more, see “Linking Infrastructure and Property Value,” in the Spring 2016 issue of Input, page 7.

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