In real estate, the age-old maxim is there are three things that matter: location, location, and location. That may or may not be true, according to real estate professionals. What is true, however, is Pokemon Go remains a huge worldwide phenomena. Signs point to its continual evolution and being popular for years to come.

In late July 2016, there were 40 million weekly active users. By August 18, the number had decreased to 28 million. Mid August coincides with the start of the traditional school year which surely accounts for some of the decline. Since that August decline until mid October, app metrics have remained markedly consistent, according to Survey Monkey Intelligence.

Twenty-eight million engaged users is still a whole lot of users.

In trying to assess the financial impact of a virtual world upon the real world, you’re covering new ground. This is the first augumented reality game that has ever been a full-fledged phenomena. Traditionally, real estate appraisers use “comps” to appraise value. When gaugeing the impact of Pokemon Go, all of this is missing at this point in time.

Yet real estate agents and brokers anecdotally discuss this as being a factor in home showings and rentals. Yelp.com includes it as a screening criteria for restaurant listings. As time goes by, the attractiveness of being near a Pokestop or regular spawining location will become easier to assess.

Data shows players play, on average, eight days per month. Other audience factors are as follows:

53 percent female; 47 percent male

43 percent of players are 18-29; 30 percent are 30-49.

In the United States, the average user is a 25-year-old female with a high-school diploma and a $76,000 average household income.

The average player plays 3.22 sessions per day for a 4.88 minutes session each.

Game features with a real-world real estate impact include Pokestops, gyms, universal spawning points and (relatively rare) hives.

Pokestops are locations players visit in order to get Pokeballs which they use in the game to capture Pokemon, the little creatures at the focus of the game.

When you build up experience as a trainer and your collection of Pokemon build up combat power, you can head to a gym to battle other trainers’ Pokemon. Trainers belong to one of three teams (yellow, red and blue). When your Pokemon defeat all of the other Pokemon at the particular gym (called “lowering the prestige” of the gym in the game), you can hold the gym until you and your group is deposed by one of the other teams.

Being located near or at a gym could be a benefit for a business, especially the right kind of restaurant where players could buy a drink or meal and try to take over the gym.

The impact of proximity to a gym upon a home’s price would be harder to gauge. In order to succeed at gym battles, you need a combination of strong Pokemon, trainer level and items procured from Pokestops. A nearby gym location would give you no intrinsic advantage in the game the way proximity to a Pokestop or spawning point would.

This man lived in a building that was listed as a Pokemon gym. He hated it.

Pertaining to home property values universal spawning points and nests (or hives) are easily the most desirable for a player and therefore residential real estate value. One can visit a succession of Pokestops in many areas and accumulate a day’s worth of Pokeballs in minutes. Living near a Pokestop would allow you to get a few Pokeballs, potions and revives every once in awhile, sparing you the need to do runs like that, but a nearby generation point would allow you to capture Pokemon that are more rare for your area on a regular basis.

Nests are generation points that generate one type of Pokemon. They’re relatively rare. Not every town has one, though, presumably, every town has many generation points.

Maps on the internet point out locations of nests. Players have published screen shots showing repeated capturing of one type of Pokemon, but the variety would generally be more desirable. It’s presumable the occassional tourist may come to the area to seek out the nest. That might be valuable for the right kind of business but not necessarily for the homeowner, unless they rent their home on Airbnb.com or Vbro.com when it would be a definite novelty for many players and thereby lead to a premium rental price for the property.

Some spawning points are definitely more prolific than others, too. Regular area players who travel around would know which are the most prolific in a given town simply by repeated experience. It’s important to note spawning points aren’t noted in any way except by noting a frequent collection of Pokemon in a particular area that appear and change out about every 15 minutes. The areas seem to be assigned randomly and not generated by cellphone traffic, as suggested by some writers. Some of the most prolific spawning points are located in the middle of residential areas. Residents near these universal spawning points merely have to turn their app on and note what’s likely to be at the generation point by looking at the small figures in the finder in the lower right hand corner.

There still is still an element of challenge for the residents. One can’t know exactly when something in the lower right corner appears — the vibration of the phone only happens when a Pokemon appears in the immediate vicinity. The resident near the spawning point still has to walk to the area. The Pokemon will have wandered off in one direction or another. Yet the ease of capturing a wide variety of Pokemon is much greater than if you lived, say, several blocks from a spawning point.

Game items can be purchased with real money. Niantic, Inc. does an admirable business in selling them. Among items for sale in the game include lure modules and incense. Since some generation points are more prolific than others, an experienced player must judge the productivity of a spawing point as compared to the usual lure module or incense.

Unlike insense, and like a lure module, a spawning point has an area affect. Every player in the area can see and capture the Pokemon. However, the experience is different. When a lure module is activated, the player knows to keep looking for Pokemon to appear. In living near a Pokemon generation point, the player needs to check his or her screen periodically to see if there are any Pokemon of interest. Players who do live near a generation point can be see coming out of their house in pajamas and other various states of casual dress to find and capture Pokemon who’ve appeared on their game screen. Oftentimes the virtual creatures will wander into the middle of their living rooms, hallways and bedrooms meaning that they don’t even have to go outside to hunt but part of the attraction of the game is to find and obtain the rarer creatures. So outside they go.

Here’s how one might go about figuring the value of the being near a universal spawning point.

1. Eight lure modules retail for 680 Pokecoins in the game store, which means the price per module is 85 Pokecoins. A lure module, when deployed, lasts for 30 minutes. One can figure that a given person has about three hours of free time per day at home when they might be eating dinner, working on a project, watching TV or doing whatever they do at home and can play Pokemon on a sporadic basis as a “lifestyle enhancement.” Admittedly there is no actual data on this. The app data comes from a broad population who aren’t located optimal locations where behavior, convenience and personality converge.

The equivalent usage, therefore is assumed to be the equivalent of six lure modules per day, or 2,190 lure modules per year.

2,190 lure modules x 85 Pokecoins = an annual cost of 186,150 Pokecoins.

Bought in bulk, the cost of a Pokecoin comes out to 0.007 cents each.

Therefore, to have the effect of a lure module (even though there is no way to do so in the game without having a Pokestop) the annual cost would be $1,303.05.

This, presumably, would be the maximum worth of being near a fully functioning universal spawning point.

Other points influencing its value include:

Convenience (actual distance from the point, also noting that the lure module can only be deployed at a Pokestop, having the spawing point at your home is, presumably, more comfortable and therefore, presumably more in demand).

Productivity of the point (as judged by an experienced player from the local area).

Discount (no individual I’ve met sits a Pokestop for three hours a day putting in lure module after lure module. A few restaurants I’ve been to in tourist areas do, however, because it’s a low-cost lure for customers who catch Pokemon while they dine. Having an unlimited lure module would be less attractive to an individual than a restaurant.)

Taking that all into account, here’s the calculation of what might be added to the worth of a house a couple of doors down from a universal spawning point.

Full value = $1,303.05

Convenience = (we’ll figure it’s a little less convenient than being right at the spawning point and figure it’s at 80 percent of the value) $1,042.44

Productivity of the Point = (our experienced player in this example proclaims it’s just as productive as lure module; no discount) 1,042.44

Discount = (target buyers and renters in the area are moderately interested in Pokemon Go. It’s presumed a fair discount would be 70 percent.) $729.71

The spawning point, in this case, produces $729.71 in value per year.

How much does this contribute to property worth?

If you wanted to invest to produce income worth $729.71, how much would you have to invest? Would that investment be as safe an secure as a banking account (probably not)? Would that investment be more speculative in nature? (probably)

The more speculative the investment is, the less valuable it is.

At this stage in the existance of the game, Pokemon Go could be considered to be more speculative and therefore worth less. Maybe a good benchmark would be credit card interest rates. How much would one have to invest at 18 percent interest to get an annual payout of $729.71?

The answer is about $4,050.

That’s what being near a Pokemon spawning point under those assumptions could be worth.

However, it could be worth more. If the consensus is that Pokemon is more of a guaranteed attractor, it’s more of a secure investment. Say it would be the equivalent to an investment that one would only need to pay 8 percent for in order to attract investors. Being located near the spawning point would add $9,021.38 to the price of the home in this case.

The worth of being near a Pokestop

If you’re near a Pokestop, especially if you don’t have to leave your home to spin the token, you’re unlikely to ever run out of Pokeballs, revives or potions — the things you need to play the game.

The real-world worth of this is less disputable, too. One readily sees the location of Pokestops as compared to spawing points.

Living near one and playing actively, one could accumulate about 50 Pokeballs per day. This comes out to a cost of 200 Pokecoins per day in the store.

200 x 0.007 = $1.40 per day.

$1.40 per day x 365 days per year = $511.00 in value per year.

As with the spawning point, the actual value must be adjusted for convenience and local interest. Productivity of the Pokestop isn’t a factor as if there is a difference between various stops, it isn’t as apparent.

So let’s say that it’s 80 percent as convenient as living right there.

Local interest among target markets for the property is moderate, judged to be at, say 25 percent.

So, therefore ($511.00 x .8 = $408.08)

Then: $408.08 x .25 = $102.20

As before, figuring out how much one would have to invest in order to get $102.20 per year depends on the prospects of likelihood of widespread interest in Pokemon Go.

If it’s doubtful, one would have to figure it at a higher rate; if it’s more stable, then it would be at a lower rate.

So let’s assume the 8 percent return is reasonable, which means it’s not equivalent to the safety of a bank account but, rather more like a blue-chip stock, that would mean such proximity to a Pokestop would be worth $1,277.50 to the residential homeowner.

Not bad. And it’s $1,277.50 in value that the homeowner didn’t have accounted for and measured before.

For a seller to potentially cash in on this value, however, one would, at minimum, need a statement from a player who was familiar with the local playing terrain, had extensive experience playing the game, had access to both anecdotal and survey data about local popularity of the game and knew a thing or two about real estate property value.

And if you don’t have a Pokestop near you, you may be able to request one from Niantic.

In real estate, investing and even Pokestop requesting, it’s all about documentation!