Academic Article Award.

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Steven Shultz, PhD, and Nick Schmitz are the winners of the 2008 Academic Article Award and a $1000 honorarium for their article, "Viewshed Analyses to Measure the Impact of Lake Views on Urban Residential Properties," which was published in the Summer 2008 issue of The Appraisal Journal. The Academic Article Award is presented for the best original article published in the Journal during the previous year and written by an academic author. Articles are judged on the basis of pertinent appraisal interest, provocative thought, logical analysis, perceptive reasoning, clarity of presentation, and overall contribution to the literature of valuation. To be eligible for this award, the article must have been peer reviewed by members of the Academic Review Panel, and the principal authors must be primarily engaged in teaching at a college and university.

In their article, Shultz and Schmitz discuss the impact of water views of small to midsized man-made lakes in urban areas that are designed for flood control and storm-water management, and have limited recreation potential. Views of two man-made lakes from nearby single-family homes in Omaha, Nebraska, were determined through multiple listing service (MLS) and geographic information system (GIS) frontage classifications, and alternative GIS-based analyses. The MLS underestimated the number of views by 79%. The GIS frontage classifications overestimated view numbers by 42%, while GIS viewshed analyses based on elevation data overestimated views by only 0.5%. Hedonic modeling determined that lake views increase home values by between 7.5% and 8.3%, which is substantial.

Steven Shultz, PhD, is the Baright Professor of Real Estate and Land Use Economics at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) and director of the UNO Real Estate Research Center. He was previously an associate professor of natural resource economics at North Dakota State University. He received his PhD from the University of Arizona in 1993 and is an academic member of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers.

Nick Schmitz is pursuing a master of arts in teaching at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He was previously a research assistant at the University of Nebraska Real Estate Research Center, where he completed an MA in real estate and land use economics. He also holds a BS in natural resources management from North Dakota State University.

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