"Property values near trails or venues do not have a price premium compared to those that are not directly abutting a trail or in proximity to venues."
That sentence comes from the Village of Wellington's own planning staff. It appears in The State of the Equestrian Preserve Area, a report on the October 7, 2026 agenda of the Equestrian Preserve Committee. A May 2026 draft of the report reached the same conclusion in the same words. The finding cuts against one of the most common assumptions in a Wellington farm search. Many buyers assume a bridle trail along the property line, or a short drive to Wellington International, adds a measurable amount to the price. According to the Village's reading of recent sales, it does not.
That changes how the rest of a farm's value should be read, because the premium has to come from somewhere.
The amenity the sales record doesn't reward
Staff looked at properties inside the Equestrian Preserve Area that sold between April 1, 2024 and April 1, 2026. Their conclusion was that distance to a bridle trail did not appear to influence price. They also tested distance to Wellington International and found it "did not have a significant impact on the price of the properties sold."
This is a staff analysis inside a planning report. It is not an appraisal study, and it covers a two-year window that closed in April. Still, it is the most direct public look at the question for this specific market. It also fits with something else in the same report. The trail system is a public asset that keeps growing. The Equestrian Trails Circulation Master Plan, 2026 update, recommends seven projects over the next three fiscal years. They include:
- A $400,000 White Trail improvement north of the C-24 Canal, using asphalt millings for footing.
- About 4,000 feet of fencing along the Pink Trail on the west side of South Shore Boulevard, estimated at $300,000.
- A trail extension from Greenbrier Boulevard to the Palm Beach Point entrance, with a preliminary estimate of $250,000.
- A $750,000 drainage and bridle trail project on Acme Road in Palm Beach Little Ranches.
- A new Dark Green Trail on the west side of the C-4 Canal from 50th Street South to Gracida Street, estimated at $400,000.
One reasonable reading is that trail access is hard to price because it isn't scarce. The Village keeps extending the network into more corners of the preserve, so the edge one parcel holds this year may reach its neighbor next year.
Smaller parcels carry larger numbers per acre
If location inside the preserve isn't driving the number, the report points to parcel size. Using Palm Beach County Property Appraiser data, staff compared land value growth by subdivision from 2020 to 2025. The figures below are appraised land values, not sale prices. They show how the county's valuation of the land changed over five years.
| Subdivision | Average lot size | Average 5-year land value increase per acre | Average % change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saddle Trail Park | 2.90 acres | $328,393 | 29.22% |
| Palm Beach Point | 7.13 acres | $301,743 | 22.20% |
| Palm Beach Point East | 6.26 acres | $301,005 | 21.21% |
| Paddock Park II | 2.23 acres | $209,793 | 44.96% |
| Equestrian Club, equestrian properties | 5.30 acres | $191,119 | 18.13% |
| Rustic Ranches | 5.50 acres | $137,499 | 36.65% |
| Palm Beach Little Ranches | 3.65 acres | $129,042 | 80.94% |
Staff summarized the pattern plainly: "smaller parcel lot sizes demand a greater value per acre." Saddle Trail Park, where lots average under three acres, posted the largest per-acre gain on the list. The ranges inside each subdivision matter too. In Palm Beach Little Ranches, individual properties ran from 1 percent to 614 percent, and Saddle Trail Park ran from a small decline to 93 percent. A subdivision average can hide very different outcomes on the same street.
Rustic Ranches shows that per-acre growth and total growth are different measures. Its per-acre increase is near the bottom of the table, yet the report says Rustic Ranches saw the largest total market value increase over five years of any subdivision in the preserve.
Discipline follows parcel size
The report's second value finding is that dressage and hunter/jumper properties "appear to have a greater property value per acre" than polo and recreational properties. Read alongside the Village's inventory of equestrian lots, this looks like the parcel size effect again.
- Hunter/jumper: 430 lots on 2,242 acres, averaging 5.21 acres
- Dressage: 96 lots on 488 acres, averaging 5.08 acres
- Polo: 147 lots on 1,607 acres, averaging 10.93 acres
- Combination: 76 lots on 1,097 acres, averaging 14.43 acres
A polo property needs room for fields, so it averages roughly twice the acreage of a typical show barn. Spread across more ground, the same buyer interest produces a lower number per acre. For a buyer, a per-acre comparison is only fair between properties built for the same discipline. A ten-acre polo farm and a five-acre hunter/jumper farm are bidding in different pools, even when they share a road.
The asking prices make the spread visible
As of September 24, 2026, the report lists nine equestrian properties over 10 acres for sale in the preserve. Staff tracked them because large parcels carry "potential for new development." Asking prices across that list run from about $423,000 per acre to about $3.1 million per acre. Nearly every listing is between 2.0 and 3.7 miles from Wellington International, and most have direct trail access. These are asking prices, not closed sales. Still, a sevenfold spread among properties with nearly the same location and trail access suggests location isn't what separates them. The site inventory is what differs. The list includes vacant land, a farm with four barns, three arenas, twenty-seven paddocks and a GGT exercise track, and a property with a mile-long all-weather perimeter track.
There is no recent sales breakdown for Wellington alone, so the broader backdrop is county data. In August 2026, Palm Beach County single-family homes posted a median sale price of $650,000, up 3.2 percent from August 2025. The average sale price rose 27.5 percent to $1,221,953 over the same period, with 3.5 months of supply. When the average climbs far faster than the median, the gain is concentrated at the top of the market. That is the tier where Wellington's equestrian properties trade.
What a parcel is allowed to hold
If trail frontage and distance to the venue don't separate one farm from another, the differences that remain are mostly regulatory. Several of those rules are changing right now.
RVs as grooms' quarters in Rustic Ranches. Proposed Ordinance No. 2026-18 would allow up to four recreational vehicles on a Rustic Ranches property from November through April. The number would depend on permanent stalls and existing grooms' quarters, and one RV would be allowed year-round. Under rules approved in 2025, owners can have one or two RVs during the season with a Special Use Permit. Before 2025, RVs were limited to two consecutive weeks a year. The ordinance goes to the Equestrian Preserve Committee on October 7 and had no recorded action as of this writing. For a seasonal operation, the ability to house staff on site affects how a property actually works.
State-level worker housing. Senate Bill 700, passed in 2025, bars local governments from blocking housing for legally verified agricultural workers on agriculturally classified land. The climate-controlled square footage is capped at 1.5 percent of the property's area or 35,000 square feet, whichever is less. The Village notes this "has the potential to increase the development of certain properties for equestrian worker housing." House Bill 211 also limits local regulation of bona fide farm operations on land classified as agricultural. How a parcel is classified now affects what can be built on it, and that should be confirmed with counsel during due diligence.
Equestrian Development rules. The Village had considered deleting Section 6.8.8, the Equestrian Developments section of the overlay district. Because state Senate Bill 180 was not changed, staff says the section may not be deleted until after October 1, 2027.
The edges of the preserve are still being drawn
Large parcels also carry risk from land use decisions, and three are open now.
The Equestrian Preserve Committee had asked the Village to expand the preserve boundary to include everything west of Flying Cow Ranch Road and south of Rustic Ranches. In a September 23, 2026 memo, Planning, Zoning and Building Director Tim Stillings reported that the owners of the property did not consent. That property is held by Wellington 4153 LLC, which also bought 19.71 acres from another family. The owners of the 19.71 acres purchased from that family had not responded, and the Village stopped processing the amendments. The same memo says Schmidt/Nichols, acting for Lennar, has discussed a residential concept on roughly 250 acres south of the MSD Preserve that may include equestrian uses. No application had been filed.
On 120th Avenue South, north of the National Polo Center, Village Council denied Isla Carroll earlier this year. The proposal was a 27-lot equestrian development with a polo field and clubhouse on about 79 acres. The Town-Crier reported that 120th Avenue South LLC filed suit against Wellington on March 26, with McCourt Partners and Discovery Land Company named as development partners. The Village report says the appeal and a state land use dispute process remain pending.
Questions buyers raise about this report
Does this mean trail access has no value? The Village found no measurable price premium in the April 2024 to April 2026 sales it reviewed. A trail can still matter to how a rider uses a property every day. The report only indicates that the market has not paid extra for it in that window.
Is Ordinance No. 2026-18 in effect? No. It is scheduled for the Equestrian Preserve Committee on October 7, 2026, and would still go to Village Council for final action.
Where can I read the source material? The full report and the Rustic Ranches ordinance are public on the Village's Legistar site. The Ordinance No. 2026-18 file includes the staff report and draft text.
Pricing an equestrian property in Wellington starts with the barn, the footing, the stall count and the zoning, because those are the factors the Village's data ties to value. If you are weighing a farm in the Equestrian Preserve, or preparing one for sale, Matt Johnson can review it parcel by parcel with you. Request a Private Consultation.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
