True Hockey Fans Pay a High Price to Live Close to Their Favorite Arenas

With the NHL season just around the corner, I’m sure those of you who live and breathe hockey wouldn’t mind living a bit closer to the action. You know, so that you shouldn’t worry about parking and stuff, and can simply trot home after an ecstatic night of rooting for your legends. It’s a dream come true for an honest worshiper of the religion that hockey is, so let’s see what it costs to live next door to the local ‘church.’

We used the Yardi Matrix rental database to analyze the real estate market in cities with their own NHL teams, and results show that rents are on average 27% higher within a 2-mile radius of the arenas. Now we’re not saying that it’s the arenas themselves that are responsible for these differences, but the thing is you have to reach into your pocket to move closer to the action anyway…

If you’re thinking about moving closer to where your favorite team plays, we have some useful stats that will hopefully spare you an unpleasant surprise:

Results vary greatly from city to city. These areas can be right on par with the city’s average like in the case of Philadelphia—or just a hair above the average like in New York City, Raleigh and Chicago—but they are typically quite costly neighborhoods. So much so that the difference can reach even a whopping 69%! Apartments in communities of 50 units and more, situated near 17 out of the 23 US arenas, ask at least 10% higher rents compared to the city’s average.

If you enjoyed reading this article you may just go about your day pretending you didn’t, or you may as well see if you also like the one we’ve written earlier about the rents near NFL stadiums.

*Apartment data was provided by Yardi Matrix, an apartment market intelligence source and RentCafe’s sister company, which researches and reports on all multifamily properties of 50+ units across 124 markets in the United States.