Home Prices Rise Annually Across Most Opportunity-Zone Redevelopment Areas
Median Prices Rise Year-Over-Year in Two-Thirds of Zones Targeted for Tax Breaks
ATTOM Data Solutions recently released its second special report analyzing qualified Opportunity Zones established by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs act of 2017. In this report, ATTOM looked at nearly 3,700 zones with enough sales data to analyze, which included home sales prices with at least five home sales in each quarter from 2005 through the third quarter of 2019.
The report found that about half the zones saw median home prices rise more than the national increase of 8.3% from the third quarter of 2018 to the third quarter of 2019.
The report also shows that 79% of the zones had median home prices in third quarter 2019 that were less than the national median of $270,000—almost the same percentage as in the second quarter of 2019. Some 46% of the zones had median prices of less than $150,000, also roughly the same as in the prior quarter.
Some of the high-level findings from the report include:
- Among the 3,658 Opportunity Zones with sufficient data to analyze, median prices rose in 48% of the zoned areas by more than the national rate of gain from third quarter 2018 to third quarter 2019. The national year-over-year increase was 8.3%.
- Among the 3,658 Opportunity Zones with sufficient data to analyze, California had the most Opportunity Zones, with 477, followed by Florida (332), Texas (293), Pennsylvania (176) and North Carolina (170).
- Of the tracts analyzed, 46% had a median price in third quarter 2019 of less than $150,000, and 17% ranged from $150,000 to $199,999. Another 16% ranged from $200,000 up to the national median of $270,000, 21% were more than $270,000. All percentages were similar to those in second quarter 2019.
- In metropolitan statistical areas with sufficient sales data to analyze, 87% of Opportunity Zones had median third quarter sales prices that were less than the median values for the surrounding MSAs. Among those, 31% had median sales prices that were less than half the figure for the MSAs. At the same time, 13% of the zones had median sales prices that were equal to or above the median sales price of the broader MSAs.
- The Midwest continued to have the highest rate of Opportunity Zone tracts with a median home price of less than $150,000 (71%), followed by the South (56%), the Northeast (47%) and the West (12%).
- States with the highest percentage of census tracts meeting Opportunity Zone requirements include Wyoming (17%), Mississippi (15%), Alabama (13%), North Dakota (12%) and New Mexico (12%). Washington, DC, also is among the leaders (14%). Nationwide, 10% of all tracts qualify.
The full report is available here.
