Land value estimation using teardowns

Teardowns provide direct information on land values in fully developed urban areas because such properties are valued only for their land and location rather than for the characteristics of the structure. We use two approaches to estimate land values. The first approach is a Stein-like procedure that uses teardown properties and makes efficient use of limited data when a group of variables – in this case, the structural characteristics – is expected beforehand to provide little explanatory power. The second approach is based on an unconditional expectation for the pooled data set of teardown and non-teardown sales. We use data from Chicago and Maricopa County to demonstrate the two approaches. These approaches help to estimate land values in built-up areas where vacant land sales are uncommon and unrepresentative of land values in the market.