Everyone has heard the cliche that the three most important factors in buying a property are “location, location, and location“. Just how important is location in determining the price of property? It’s very important. I came accross a study this week done by Coldwell Banker which compared the prices of properties. The study surveyed prices of similar homes in 324 real-estate markets for a similar 2,200 square foot, four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, two-car garage house. The difference between the most expensive and the cheapest was very large! The biggest gap was between La Jolla, California, and Killeen, Texas. You could either own 1 of these properties in La Jolla, California, or 14 identical ones in Killeen, Texas! And with even with the 14 properties in Killeen, Texas, you’d still have $36k left over!

Why such a big difference? Because of the desirability of the locations. La Jolla is a beautiful city California perched on the Pacific Ocean with lots of coastal properties, it has year round beautiful weather, lots of amenities, and so on. In contrast, Killeen is a city built around an army base in the middle of the prairies with much harsher weather. Should the discrepency be so large? That’s a debatle subject, however the reality is that it is.

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