Median Home Values Rise During First Quarter
of 2024 in Only Half of Opportunity Zones Targeted for Economic
Redevelopment Around U.S.; But Price Trends Inside
Zones Again Reflect National Market Patterns; By Some
Measures, Opportunity Zone Changes Surpass Nationwide Gains
IRVINE,
Calif., May 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ATTOM, a
leading curator of land, property, and real estate
data, today released its first-quarter 2024 report analyzing
qualified low-income Opportunity Zones targeted by Congress for
economic redevelopment in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (see
full methodology below). In this report, ATTOM looked at 3,512
zones around the United States
with sufficient data to analyze, meaning they had at least five
home sales in the first quarter of 2024.
The report found that median single-family home and condo prices
increased from the fourth quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of
2024 in just 49 percent of Opportunity Zones around the country.
But they were still up annually in almost two-thirds of Opportunity
Zones with enough data to measure.
Those trends, in and around low-income neighborhoods where the
federal government offers tax breaks to spur economic revival,
continued a long-term pattern of home values inside Opportunity
Zones moving alongside broader nationwide shifts for at least the
last three years.
The mixed first-quarter price patterns hit harder in the very
lowest-priced areas, with declining values posing a warning sign in
those markets. Nevertheless, the overall picture inside Opportunity
Zones revealed ongoing measures of economic strength, or limited
weakness, inside some of the country's most distressed communities
compared to other markets around the country. That scenario has
remained in place even as a decade-long housing market boom has
slowed in Opportunity Zones and elsewhere, with relatively modest
price increases over the past year.
By one key measure, Opportunity Zones price trends even showed
continued signs again of doing somewhat better than the nation as a
whole during the early months of 2024. For example, changes in
typical home values across more than half of Opportunity Zones were
better than nationwide price movements both quarterly and
annually.
"Another quarter, same result. That's the takeaway yet again
inside Opportunity Zones around the U.S., where home prices still
lag far behind national numbers, but gains and losses mostly keep
tracking overall market patterns," said Rob
Barber, CEO for ATTOM. "Clearly, there are exceptions,
especially at the lowest end of the price scale. Nevertheless, the
latest data shows Opportunity Zone housing markets continuing to
attract considerable interest among home buyers pushed out of
higher-priced areas in a market with very limited supplies of homes
for sale. That again points to the kind of economic viability
needed to lure investors who may want to take advantage of the
redevelopment incentives aimed at revitalizing those
communities."
Opportunity Zones are defined in the Tax Act legislation as
census tracts in or alongside low-income neighborhoods that meet
various criteria for redevelopment in all 50 states, the
District of Columbia and U.S.
territories. Census tracts, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau,
cover areas that have 1,200 to 8,000 residents, with an average of
about 4,000 people.
Amid economic limitations, most Opportunity Zones again had
typical home values that fell well below those in other markets
around the nation in the first quarter of 2024. Median
first-quarter prices inside 78 percent of the zones were less the
U.S. median of $330,000. That was
about the same portion as in earlier periods over the past three
years. In addition, median prices remained under $200,000 in about half the zones.
High-level findings from the report:
- Median prices of single-family homes and condominiums increased
from the fourth quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024 in
1,503 (49 percent) of the Opportunity Zones around the U.S. with
sufficient data to analyze, while staying the same or decreasing in
51 percent. Measured annually, medians remained up from the first
quarter of 2023 to same period this year in 1,892 (62 percent) of
those zones. (Among the 3,512 Opportunity Zones included in the
report, 3,041 had enough data to generate usable median-price
comparisons from the fourth quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of
2024; 3,043 had enough data to make comparisons between the first
quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024).
- Opportunity Zones did even better than the nation as a whole
when comparing price changes in those areas to shifts in the
national median home price. For example, median values in almost 60
percent of Opportunity Zones went up from the first quarter of 2023
to the same period this year by more than 3.1 percent annual gain
nationwide. (A similar pattern emerged quarterly when comparing
shifts in Opportunity Zones to changes in the national median
value.)
- However, in a potential sign of trouble in areas with the very
lowest home values, median prices were up annually in only about 45
percent of Opportunity Zones where homes commonly sold for less
than $100,000 during the first
quarter of 2024. Prices climbed, year over year, in about 60
percent to 70 percent of zones with higher home values.
- Among states that had at least 25 Opportunity Zones with enough
data to analyze during the first quarter of 2024, the largest
portions of zones where median prices increased quarterly were in
Kentucky (medians up from the
fourth quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024 in 65 percent
of zones), New Jersey (58
percent), Tennessee (56 percent),
Arizona (56 percent) and
Minnesota (56 percent). States
where prices were up quarterly in the smallest portion of zones
included Utah (median prices up
quarterly in 38 percent of zones), New
York (42 percent), Virginia
(42 percent), South Carolina (42
percent) and Alabama (44
percent).
- States where median home values in Opportunity Zones remained
up most often year over year included New
Jersey (median prices up annually in 91 percent of zones),
Wisconsin (75 percent),
Kentucky (70 percent),
Minnesota (70 percent) and
Illinois (70 percent).
- Of the 3,512 zones in the report, 1,197 (34 percent) had median
prices below $150,000 in the first
quarter of 2024. That was down from 38 percent of zones with
sufficient data a year earlier. Another 558 zones (16 percent) had
medians in the first quarter of this year ranging from $150,000 to $199,999.
- Median values in the first quarter of 2024 ranged from
$200,000 to $299,999 in 797 Opportunity Zones (23 percent)
while they topped the nationwide first-quarter median of
$330,000 in just 776 (22
percent).
- The Midwest continued in the first quarter of 2024 to have
larger portions of the lowest-priced Opportunity Zone tracts.
Median home prices were less than $175,000 in 67 percent of zones in the Midwest,
followed by the Northeast (47 percent), the South (42 percent) and
the West (6 percent).
Report methodology
The ATTOM Opportunity Zones
analysis is based on home sales price data derived from recorded
sales deeds. Statistics for previous quarters are revised when each
new report is issued as more deed data becomes available. ATTOM's
analysis compared median home prices in census tracts designated as
Opportunity Zones by the Internal Revenue Service. Except where
noted, tracts were used for the analysis if they had at least five
sales in the first quarter of 2024. Median household income data
for tracts and counties comes from surveys taken the U.S. Census
Bureau (www.census.gov) from 2018 through 2022. The list of
designated Qualified Opportunity Zones is located at U.S.
Department of the Treasury. Regions are based on designations by
the Census Bureau. Hawaii and
Alaska, which the bureau
designates as part of the Pacific region, were included in the West
region for this report.
About ATTOM
ATTOM provides premium property data
to power products that improve transparency, innovation,
efficiency, and disruption in a data-driven economy. ATTOM
multi-sources property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure,
environmental risk, natural hazard, and neighborhood data for more
than 155 million U.S. residential and commercial properties
covering 99 percent of the nation's population. A rigorous data
management process involving more than 20 steps validates,
standardizes, and enhances the real estate data collected by ATTOM,
assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the
ATTOM ID. The 30TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many
industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing,
government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that
include ATTOM Cloud, bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real
estate market trends, property navigator and more. Also,
introducing our newest innovative solution, making property data
more readily accessible and optimized for AI applications– AI-Ready
Solutions.
Media Contact:
Megan
Hunt
megan.hunt@attomdata.com
Data and Report
Licensing:
datareports@attomdata.com
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SOURCE ATTOM