Studies showing depressed property values near transmission lines accumulate
Though research on high-voltage transmission lines and property values is not unanimous, a substantial body of evidence shows that high voltage transmission lines can and have reduced the value, utility, and marketability of nearby properties, and often significantly so.
A literature review by Liberty Matters shows that the largest losses tend to occur when transmission easements cross rural land, divide working farms, or place conspicuous towers near homes. Yet many affected owners, particularly those whose properties lie near but are not crossed by a line, receive no compensation for those losses.
The issue is growing ever more contentious and significant as utilities and governments plan and push a new generation of high-voltage transmission projects. However, contrary to many utility company and local government press releases, the costs of those lines are not confined to construction budgets and electric bills. For farmers and rural property owners, high voltage transmission lines (HVTLs) can and have restricted land use, interfered with agricultural operations, diminished scenic and recreational qualities, created noise and other nuisances, posed legitimate health fears, and placed an industrial structure across properties that have been held by the same families for generations.
Add to those very real impacts the added negative value of perception. If prospective buyers regard a property as less desirable because of the lines, that perception can become a measurable financial loss.
The bottom line is, while it is impossible to claim a complete and exhaustive review, what Liberty Matters did find in its search of the literature was the existence of a substantial body of work that, through the years, shows transmission lines eroding property values—far more than of those showing negligible effects or upgrades.
To be fair, the research is not unanimous. A 2020 literature review by Thomas Jackson and Jennifer Pitts, The Effects of Electric Transmission Lines on Property Values, found that surveys of property owners, buyers, appraisers, and real-estate professionals consistently revealed concerns about transmission lines and their appearance while most regression-based sales studies reviewed by the authors found little or no effect on sale prices. Where effects were detected, Jackson and Pitts wrote, they generally diminished with distance and sometimes with time.
That said, and as noted, a significant number of studies over the past 20 years—in fact, an accumulation of them—do find increasing negative values, and those values appear to be declining even more the larger the transmission projects are. Even Jackson and Pitts wrote as far back as 2007, in a piece entitled “Power Lines and Property Values Revisited,” that “[m]any studies indicate that the HVTLs have no significant effect on residential property values. More recently, however, an increasing number of studies do show a small diminution in value attributable to the close proximity of these lines.”
In other words, they were walking back their earlier findings, and even that was likely an understatement, for multiple later studies show significant erosion of values due to HVTLs. To cite just one example, in a study conducted of a subdivision of 156 rural lots in Montana, in 2012 by appraiser James Chalmers, “Transmission Line Impacts on Rural Property Value,” a statistical analysis showed a discount of about 15 percent in the sale price of the lots within 1,000 feet of the center line of a 500kV line.
One problem encountered is that fewer studies have been conducted in the past 10 years, when larger-scale transmission projects such as 765kV lines have proliferated, than in the preceding 10 years. However, a 2024 study by Max Harleman in Energy Policy, “Who bears the cost of renewable power lines? Evidence from housing values,” found that property values within 0.5 km of lines in Texas decreased by 10 percent on average, while most affected property owners do not receive compensation from utilities.
“Using data on real estate transactions, the results indicate that CREZ [Competitive Renewable Energy Zone] reduced residential property values within 0.5 km of the lines,” Harleman wrote. “Properties that are physically crossed by the lines and receive compensation for hosting them make up only 37 percent of affected properties. The remaining 63 percent are nearby, ‘unencumbered’ residential properties within 0.5 km of the lines, and their values fall by up to 10 percent on average or around $12,000 for the property with the median value.”
In aggregate, Harleman found, reductions totaled $223 million in uncompensated losses.
Other studies might point in a different direction, but they are often flawed methodologically or suffer from biased origins that effectively fit them with blinders. Many have conflicts of interest in funding from utilities, for example. Another reason the literature deserves careful dissection is that real estate appraisers are often reluctant to attribute substantial losses in value to easements or other encumbrances, despite quite obvious industrial intrusions and minimal sound abatements on subject properties and on immediately contiguous land. In many cases they are retained either by the landowner selling the affected property or by the utility or developer, creating strong institutional pressure toward conservative damage estimates.
However, even within that littered literature landscape, Harleman’s study is not an outlier. In fact, there are significantly more studies—the shelves are full of them, often ignored by transmission line opponents—demonstrating more negative impacts than critics would like to admit.
In fact, it isn’t even close.
The most important study, a 2018 Journal of Real Estate Research study titled “The Pricing of Power Lines,” by David Wyman and Chris Mothorpe, examined 5,455 vacant-lot sales in Pickens County, South Carolina, using several methods to distinguish simple proximity from actual visibility. They found that lots adjoining transmission lines sold for 44.9 percent less than comparable lots, while nonadjacent lots within 1,000 feet sold for 17.9 percent less.
Visual impacts were predominant but not the only factor, Wyman and Mothorpe found. Surveys suggested that power lines provide a visual disamenity, they wrote, while there was also fear that exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) may pose a carcinogenic risk. Finally, power lines may generate a disturbing hum, which is louder for proximate properties, they observed:
“Survey respondents suggest there are three reasons that HVTLs have a negative impact on property prices: visual disamenity, noise disturbances and health concerns. … this study confirms our hypothesis that pricing discounts for proximity and/or a view of HVTL suspension towers can be substantive.”
Kurt Kielisch’s 2013 South Dakota valuation report, “Valuation Guidelines for Properties with Electric Transmission Lines,” published by the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, surveyed numerous transmission-line studies involving rural, agricultural, and residential properties and is probably the most comprehensive work, precisely because he worked with real-world sales data. A little dated (though most are), Kielisch nonetheless concluded that the studies he reviewed commonly found losses between 10 and 30 percent, though he acknowledged studies finding no measurable effect.
Among those examples, many of which were in Wisconsin, in Clark County, Wisconsin, one study included 22 land sales of agricultural and recreation land, of which four were encumbered with a 345kV electric transmission line: “The conclusion of this study was that: (a) the land sales with an electric transmission line sold for 23 percent less than comparable land sales without a transmission line; and the more severe the location of the power line the greater was the loss of value.”
In Marathon County, Wisconsin, a study of the Arrowhead-Weston 345kV line found losses of more than 10 percent when the line followed the edge of a property and as much as a third of value when it bisected a large parcel, Kielisch reported.
“This study used 14 land sales, of which five were encumbered with the power line and nine were not,” Kielisch wrote. “The study concluded with a finding that when the power line traversed the property along the edge, such as a back fence line, the loss was as low as 15 percent, and when it bisected a large parcel the loss was as high as 34 percent.”
That distinction is important because while a line running along a back boundary may be disruptive, one cutting through the center of a farm can fragment fields, constrain future uses, and impair the operation and identity of the entire property, with catastrophic property value loss.
To be sure, not all rural property is affected equally. Flat agricultural land owned primarily for crop production by absentee owners may be negatively impacted but still experience comparatively smaller economic losses because its value is tied largely to income generation. If easement compensation exceeds any reduction in farming productivity, some absentee owners may view the transaction as economically acceptable. Even so, a 765-kV transmission corridor can permanently eliminate the property’s future development potential, reducing options that otherwise might have become valuable over time.
Other Wisconsin evidence have reinforced the same patterns. An appraisal involving a 24-acre agricultural parcel in Dodge County estimated a 29-percent loss attributable to the transmission line.
“[‘Properties Near Power Lines and Valuation Issues: Condemnation or Inverse Condemnation’ by David Bolton] cites a number of studies that prove a loss of property value due to proximity to an electric transmission line and then cites his own study,” Kielisch wrote. “His own study found that in the Houston area assessed values of properties that adjoined a power line easement had a 12.8 percent to 30.7 percent lower assessment than the average homes not on the line, but in the same area. He also found that: (1) many buyers refused to even look at such properties; (2) such properties took at least twice as long to sell; (3) some brokers said such properties can take three times longer and finally sell at a 25 percent loss of value; and (4) overall homes adjoining transmission line easements took six times longer to sell and experienced a 10 percent to 30 percent loss in value.”
Longer marketing times are not merely theoretical; real-life examples abound. One ranch in Texas along Highway 87 between San Angelo and Eden, with a wind farm located roughly one-half mile away, has remained on the market for years despite being an otherwise desirable recreational property. While no single listing proves causation, it illustrates a practical reality: Buyers become far more hesitant when prominent energy infrastructure dominates the surrounding landscape, often resulting in extended marketing periods and ultimately lower sale prices, if they sell at all.
In “Analysis of Severance Damages in 2007,” Kielisch wrote, appraiser James Sanders found an overall loss to improved properties in Tucson, Arizona, abutting a power line easement at 12 percent. However, the author observed that the lots were typically twice the size of the non-easement lots, and when the size of lots was factored, the overall loss to the land was factored at 40 percent.
Then there was “Peggy Tierney Property: A Comparative Study of the Impact of a 69kV Transmission Line v. 345kV/69kV cTransmission Line.” This was a 3.7 acre residential lake front improved property that had an existing 69kV transmission line crossing the west half of the parcel along the road and required the property owner to cross under the power line to enter the parcel.
“The seller attempted to sell the property at its full list price after an experienced lake front home Realtor established the list price from a comparative sales analysis,” Kielisch wrote. “The home eventually sold for 27 percent less than the list price and took longer to sell in a relatively strong lake front home market. The buyer cited the pending 345kV line as the principal reason for their low offer.”
In Deer Creek, a single family home located on 3.19 acres in the rural area of Outagamie County, Wisconsin, was the subject of a condemnation for a power line.
“There were two appraisals completed on this property, one by the condemnor (ATC) and one by the property owner,” Kielisch wrote. “The average before taking value of the two appraisals was $221,000. The property was then improved with a 345kV & 138kV electric transmission line…. The condemnor American Transmission Company (ATC) purchased the property and installed the transmission line. Then they upgraded the property with new paint, doors, sinks, dishwasher and flooring, plus cleaned the premises and outbuildings. ATC put the property on the market asking $179,900, a number established by the appraiser for ATC as the After value. It was sold for $128,500 10 months after ATC purchased it.”
As Kielisch points out, the Before taking average value was $221,000, the property was improved and upgraded at an expense estimated to be $8,000-$10,000, and then resold 10 months later with the transmission lines in place for $92,500 less than the appraised value, or 42 percent less: “The only differences between the Before taking market value and After taking sale price were the transmission line and time.”
All in all, looking at real-world sales data as well as the literature, Kielisch was highly confident that HVTLs devalued properties significantly: “In conclusion, it can be stated with a high degree of certainty that there is a significant negative effect ranging from -10 percent to -30 percent of property value due to the presence of the high voltage electric transmission line. The actual loss depends on factors of land use, location of the power line and its size.”
To that point, recreational ranches and scenic properties often represent the opposite end of the spectrum but are no less diminished. Land purchased for its natural beauty—its hills, valleys, bluffs, ravines, creeks, ponds, springs, and rivers—derives much of its market value from those qualities rather than agricultural production. In places such as the Texas Hill Country and Big Bend Country, buyers routinely pay substantial premiums for zero light pollution at night, gorgeous sunsets and sunrises, and breathtaking vistas, not to mention to secure properties that are therapeutically peaceful and quiet. A 765-kV transmission line crossing or bordering such properties fundamentally changes the landscape and can substantially diminish the characteristics that justified those premiums in the first place.
The bottom line of all the work is that it is not possible to ignore so many studies showing significant and real-world property value devaluations. It is simply indefensible to presume that transmission lines cause no economic injury merely because some broad studies fail to detect an average effect.
Governments and utilities frequently present transmission projects as necessary for grid reliability, economic development, renewable generation, data centers, or rising electricity demand. Whatever the justification, the public benefits do not erase the private burden. Owners whose land is condemned receive at least some compensation for the easement, but neighbors can suffer the same damaged views, noise, reduced buyer interest, and falling property values without receiving anything.
Rural landowners should not become an invisible subsidy for infrastructure built to serve distant generators, cities, industries, or consumers.
