Would You Pay More For A House With Better Broadband Connectivity?

[Zante]

Via http://www.economicvoice.com/does-having-faster-broadband-increase-the-value-of-your-home/50016662#axzz1IZEd8qO0

While most pundits are pointing towards a stagnant or slowly falling housing market, there is a bit of good news out there for some.

ISPreview.co.uk conducted a poll that elicited 733 respondents.

The questions they asked related to whether people thought that having a fast broadband connection was a valuable consideration when buying or owning a property.

When asked ‘Is broadband important to your home life?’, a whacking 73.9% said it was critically important, 24.2% said it was of average importance and only 1.7% said it was of no importance.

When asked to respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the question ‘Would you pay more for a house with faster broadband?‘ it was very evenly matched with the noes taking it by a narrow whisker of 50.4% over 49.5%.

But it seems that new dream home must have fast broadband for the majority of us. In answer to ‘Would lack of fast broadband put you off buying a beautiful new house?’ the ayes had it with 68.8% over 31.1% (I know it doesn’t add up to exactly 100% but that’s their figures).

So it seems that people won’t necessarily pay more for a house with fast broadband but may well be put off of buying a house without it.

So it’s not all doom and gloom, if you live in a fast broadband area that is.

This of course is one thing you probably won’t find in the estate agents’ particulars on a house (property misdecriptions act and all that). But I wonder where the seller (and agent for that matter) would stand legally if they claimed that the local broadband was faster than it really was just to ensure a sale?

For hoteliers out there, one other question asked was whether people would pay more for a room with broadband. Only 37.2% said yes.

Read more: http://www.economicvoice.com/does-having-faster-broadband-increase-the-value-of-your-home/50016662#ixzz1aU0p1Aro

Personally, I'd be willing to pay more for a gigabit connection.