How Artists Influence Real Estate Prices Waterville ME

Investors may deepen their appreciation for the arts after they realize how much influence artists can have on real estate values.

Not many artists can afford the expensive rents of trendy downtown areas, so most live in cheaper areas of cities. When an area is full of artists, it attracts new studios and galleries, restaurants and shops. This energy and culture can change a less-than-desirable neighborhood or city into a desirable one—with the property prices to match.

Greenwich Village exemplifies artists' effects on real estate "It has been proved that artists—defined as self-employed visual artists, actors, musicians, writers, etc.—can stimulate local economies in a number of ways," according to BusinessWeek. Greenwich Village, in New York City, is perhaps the most widely known example of this pattern.

San Francisco, one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country, has another example of how artists can revitalize neighborhoods.

"Artists and small organizations have turned formerly empty sections of the city, such as the warehouse area south of Market Street, into a thriving and bustling neighborhood," according to Realty Times. "Artists move in, galleries and restaurants follow, then developers and real estate agents."

Once an area has heightened cultural activity, people with money tend to become more interested in it. But culture does more than draw wealth; it can also draw workers, improving an area's job market and thus its economy.

"Being a cultural center also helps local businesses attract employees who want to be able to regularly go to the ballet or the theater, hear authors read from their latest books or attend art-gallery openings," according to BusinessWeek.

Hampden, a neighborhood near Johns Hopkins University in northern Baltimore, is another neighborhood that has been turned around by artists. It was a mill town for most of its existence, but most of the mills were shut down during an economic downturn in the 1980s and 1990s.

"The arts and artists often play major roles in the revitalization of older city neighborhoods," according to Realty Times. That has been the case with Hampden, which hosts both the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival and HonFest, an annual festival at which attendees tease their hair into beehive hairdos and participate in a contest to find the best Bawlmerese—the nickname for Baltimore's accent.

"In recent years, young artists and entrepreneurs have increasingly discovered Hampden's offbeat appeal, and a new crop of funky galleries, boutiques and antiques shops has emerged among the pawnshops and dusty five-and-dimes along the 36th Street 'Avenue,'" according to The Washington Post.

Hampden's historic Rotunda shopping center is the site of an extensive multi-use development where construction is set to begin next year. The development has met with some controversy, since some long-time Hampden residents consider it at odds with the area's blue-collar pa...

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