Personally, I love going through neighborhoods with large, mature trees. I do think it increases the value of a home, for me. When I was looking for homes, I was much more impressed with homes that had mature trees, especially mature trees by the street. Mature trees in front of windows of a house, though, is often bad placement and detracts from the home. Well-placed mature trees, though, are great.
That said, however, I have recently (last few years) gotten into the gardening mindset and now I want my trees to be more productive...and very few people have fruit-bearing or nut-bearing trees, especially around here. Most people have maples or other trees that produce non-edibles.
In my yard, in addition to maples, evergreens, and sycamore, I have apple trees, pear trees, and a plum tree--which is great for me, but I completely understand how some people wouldn't want fruit trees. Trees CAN be a very personal thing...but I do still think mature trees add value to the house. That seems like a very plausible assertion, to me.
