Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos flew to suborbital space and back on Tuesday. His journey follows Virgin Records founder Richard Branson’s space trip last week. But what do these billionaire space joyrides have to do with real estate? A lot, if this trend truly takes off, real estate experts say.
The hub locations for aerospace giants such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’ Blue Origin could drive average median real estate prices as they attract job growth and higher incomes.
“If, say, a large tech company decided to open another headquarters with high-income jobs, then the local area will experience a sizable growth in home prices,” NAR’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun told Fox Business. “Given that SpaceX and Blue Origin employees have sophisticated high-tech skills with presumably high income, the impacted small community real estate market will clearly benefit.”
To what extent can space rides affect the local real estate prices in these areas? The areas where SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic conduct business have gone up substantially. In Cameron and Santa Barbara counties, home prices have climbed 51% and 108%, respectively, between 2000 and 2020, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s housing price index map. In Sierra County, N.M., and Kern County, Calif., real estate prices have surged 80% and 114%, respectively, between 2000 and 2020. In Brevard County, Fla., prices are up 128% in that time period.
Source: Fox Business
