Median Prices Again Rise Year-Over-Year in Two-Thirds of Zones Targeted for Tax Breaks; Half of Zones Have Median Home Prices Below $150,000
IRVINE, Calif. – February 20, 2020 — ATTOM Data Solutions, curator of the nation’s premier property database and first property data provider of Data-as-a-Service (DaaS), today released its third special report analyzing qualified Opportunity Zones established by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs act of 2017 (see full methodology below). In this report, ATTOM looked at about 3,700 zones with sufficient sales data to analyze, meaning they had at least five home sales in each quarter from 2005 through the fourth quarter of 2019.
The report found that about half the zones included in the report, where there was sufficient sales data, saw median home prices rise more than the national increase of 9.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2018 to the fourth quarter of 2019.
The report also shows that 78 percent of the zones had median home prices in the fourth quarter of 2019 that were less than the national median of $257,000 – almost the same percentage as in the third quarter of 2019. Some 48 percent of the zones had median prices of less than $150,000.
“Home prices in thousands of Opportunity Zone neighborhoods targeted for revival across the United States continued to ride the tide of the national housing market boom in the fourth quarter of 2019, marching along with broad trends and even doing better in many areas,” said Todd Teta, chief product officer with ATTOM Data Solutions. “These areas are among the most vulnerable to economic downturns. As a result, the recent upswing could change on a dime if the broader housing market flattens out or sags. But for now, the price gains are a crucial measure that neighborhoods designated as Opportunity Zone tax breaks hold significant allure for potential residents.”
High-level findings from the report include:
- Median prices rose from the fourth quarter of 2018 to the fourth quarter of 2019 in 66 percent of the Opportunity Zones with sufficient data to analyze. In 34 percent of zones, they declined or stayed the same.
- Median prices in 47 percent of Opportunity Zones with sufficient data to analyze rose year-over-year more than values increased nationally. The national increase from the fourth quarter of 2018 to the fourth quarter of 2019 was 9.4 percent.
- In 20 states, year-over-year median price increases in at least half the Opportunity Zones beat the national 9.4 percent figure. Those with the most such zones were Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Ohio and New Jersey.
- Among the Opportunity Zones with sufficient data to analyze, California had the most, with 465, followed by Florida (332), Texas (234), Pennsylvania (166) and North Carolina (165).
- Of the zones analyzed, 1,776 (48 percent) had a median price of less than $150,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019, and 594 (16 percent) had medians ranging from $150,000 to $199,999. Another 529 (14 percent) ranged from $200,000 up to the national median price of $257,000, while 817 (22 percent) were more than $257,000.
- In Metropolitan Statistical Areas with sufficient sales data to analyze, 84 percent of Opportunity Zones had median fourth quarter sales prices that were less than the median values for the surrounding MSAs. Among those, 25 percent had median sales prices that were less than half the figure for the MSAs. At the same time, 16 percent 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 (73 percent), followed by the South (58 percent), the Northeast (51 percent) and the West (12 percent).
- States with the highest percentage of census tracts meeting Opportunity Zone requirements included Wyoming (17 percent), Mississippi (15 percent), Alabama (13 percent), North Dakota (12 percent) and New Mexico (12 percent). Washington, DC, was also among the leaders (14 percent). Nationwide, 10 percent of all tracts qualify.
Report methodology
The ATTOM Data Solutions 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 Data Solutions 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 each quarter from 2005 through the fourth quarter of 2019. Outlier medians can result from limited fourth quarter sales data available at the time of this release. Median household income data for tracts and counties comes from surveys taken the U.S. Census Bureau (www.census.gov) from 2014 through 2018. 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 bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property navigator and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, that offers immediate access and streamlines data management – ATTOM Cloud.
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