• Zillow analyzed home values and light pollution data to identify the ZIP codes with the highest home values and clearest night skies.
• Of the top 10 ZIP codes, nine are within 20 miles of the ocean.

An article in this week’s Mansion section of the Wall Street Journal featured a Zillow analysis that identified the top ZIP codes with a combination of high home values and low light pollution, ideal for viewing the night sky from a luxury setting.

Six of the top ten ZIP codes are located along California’s scenic central coast, and two are on the Hawaiian island of Maui. ZIP codes in the Rocky Mountain resort town of Aspen and in the small town of Royal Oak, Md.—on Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore—round out the top ten. Nine of the top ten ZIP codes are within 20 miles of the ocean, which likely contributes to their high values (prior Zillow research looked at the effect of proximity to water on home values).

The analysis was conducted at the ZIP code level and pairs the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) (available for download here) with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s two-month composite light-emission data. Zillow scaled and normalized the two metrics and took a weighted average, with (the negative of) light pollution weighted four times the median home value.  This ensured that the index reflects both metrics. After excluding ZIP codes above a certain level of light pollution, in order to prevent very pricey but still fairly light-polluted locations from dominating the list, we ranked the weighted average to give us our “luxury stargazer” ranking.

Stefanos Chen of the Wall Street Journal wrote about the analysis far more eloquently—thank you Stefanos for your hard work!