Does Living Near a Costco Actually Boost Your Home Value?

Clients ask me about this more than you'd think. A Costco announcement goes up near a neighborhood, and suddenly everyone assumes their home just got more valuable. According to Realtor.com, the real answer is more specific than that, and it depends almost entirely on where the house sits.

Researcher Silas Kwok at the Vancouver School of Economics studied Costco openings across the US from 2002 to 2020. Nationally, he found the openings "caused no significant changes in property values on average." So the blanket assumption that a nearby Costco automatically raises your home's worth doesn't hold up on its own.

Where it actually moves the needle

The story changes in specific kinds of neighborhoods. Kwok found that Costco openings caused a 7.9% increase in property values within 5 miles in counties with above-average population density, and a 5.2% increase within 5 miles in counties with above-average household income, both measured 2.5 years after the store opened. Density and income are doing the work here, not Costco alone.

Confirmation, not creation

Selma Hepp, chief economist at Cotality, offers a useful way to think about this. "Home values only increased in areas that were already high-density or high-income," she says, which suggests Costco tends to open in places that were already trending up rather than being the thing that causes the trend. She also points out that Costco is a destination store people already plan to drive to, so living one minute away instead of fifteen doesn't add much premium the way a daily-visit spot like a coffee shop or grocery store would.

The downsides are real too

Andy Kravchenko, founder of Sterling Home Offer, put it plainly: "When we evaluate a house that backs up to or faces a big-box site, we have to price in what the next buyer will feel, delivery trucks before sunrise, parking lot lights at night, weekend traffic, and a backyard view of a loading dock." His advice for buyers weighing a nearby Costco is to visit at the worst possible times, 6 am on a delivery day and Saturday noon, then check the county parcel map for undeveloped commercial land nearby, since today's empty lot can become tomorrow's expansion.

What this means if you're buying or selling

Orlando-area agent Christina Rordam raises a fair point too, one worth asking yourself honestly. "If you are a single or smaller household, maybe you won't have much use for those gallon jugs of ketchup or 50 packs of noodles anyway." A Costco nearby is a genuine perk for a lot of buyers, but it's not a guaranteed value bump, and it's not the right fit for every household either. If you're weighing a property near a big-box store, or wondering what a new one going up nearby actually means for your home, let's look at your specific street and situation before you assume anything either way.