ATTOM Data Solutions’ newly released Q1 2020 Opportunity Zones Report found that 45 percent of the zones included in the analysis saw median home prices rise by more than the national increase of 11.3 percent from Q1 2019 to Q1 2020. This report looked at about 3,000 qualified Opportunity Zones established by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs act of 2017, with sufficient sales data, meaning they had at least five home sales in each quarter from 2005 through Q1 2020.
ATTOM’s most recent Opportunity Zones analysis also shows that 78 percent of the zones had median home prices in Q1 2020 that were less than the national median of $265,900. The data featured in this report forms the last snapshot of Opportunity Zone home prices before the major economic impact of the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Q1 report, median prices rose from Q1 2019 to Q1 2020 in 64 percent of Opportunity Zones with sufficient data to analyze. In 36 percent of zones, they declined or stayed the same. Of the 3,010 zones included in the report, 2,584 had enough data to generate usable median prices in both Q1 2019 and Q1 2020.
Another high-level takeaway from the report stated that among all 3,010 Opportunity Zones in the report, California had the most, with 389 zones, followed by Florida (295 zones), Georgia (148 zones), Texas (144 zones) and North Carolina (137 zones).
On the metro area level, ATTOM’s Q1 Opportunity Zones report noted that in those areas with sufficient sales data to analyze, 86 percent of Opportunity Zones had median Q1 2020 sales prices that were less than the median values for the surrounding MSAs. Some 25 percent had median sales prices that were less than half the figure for the surrounding MSAs. Fourteen percent of the zones had median sales prices that were equal to or above the median sales price of the broader MSAs.
In this post, we take a deep data dive to reveal the top 10 Opportunity Zones with median home prices less than half the figure for the surrounding MSAs in Q1 2020, which have seen year-over-year increases between 50 and 100 percent.
Those Opportunity Zones include: 12095018500 – Orlando-Kissimmee, FL (92.9 percent increase); 01073001400 – Birmingham-Hoover, AL (92.1 percent increase); 37081011000 – Greensboro-High Point, NC (92.0 percent increase); 21111002700 – Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN (89.9 percent increase); 48141010501 – El Paso, TX (87.1 percent increase); 42101017100 – Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD (86.4 percent increase); 21111000200 – Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN (85.7 percent increase); 17031827600 – Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI (83.7 percent increase); 47157007000 – Memphis, TN-MS-AR (78.2 percent increase); and 17031460400 – Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI (74.4 percent increase).
ATTOM’s Q1 2020 Opportunity Zones analysis also reported that of all the zones included in the report, 1,384 (46 percent) had a median price in Q1 2020 that was less than $150,000 and 502 (17 percent) had medians ranging from $150,000 to $199,999. Another 467 (16 percent) ranged from $200,000 up to the national median price of $265,900 while 657 (22 percent) were more than $265,900. All percentages were similar to those in Q4 2019.
The report noted that the Midwest continued to have the highest rate of Opportunity Zone tracts with a median home price of less than $150,000 (76 percent), followed by the South (58 percent), the Northeast (45 percent) and the West (11 percent).
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