Taylor Scott International News
Homes values in some urban areas in the United States are outpacing the value of homes in the suburbs in most top tier metros, new analysis has found. City life is gaining in popularity and high-end condos are popular in Boston, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and other cities with fast changing downtowns, according to a report from real estate firm Zillow. It points out that homes in the suburbs, a longstanding symbol of the American Dream, have typically been worth more, on average, than homes in urban areas. While that is still true in much of the country such as Nashville, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Richmond in Virginia, elsewhere things are changing. The change is most marked in in Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco where the mean value of urban homes has recently surpassed the mean value of homes in suburban areas. And urban homes are gaining ground in Denver, Phoenix, and Chicago. The shift reflects demographic trends of millennials delaying family life and choosing condos, and shifting preferences, as people seek walkable neighbourhoods with urban amenities, the research suggests. It has vast implications for low income people who have traditionally lived in cities to be near services and employment. Zillow recently found that, in San Francisco and Seattle, high income people are making shorter commutes to downtown, while low income people are traveling much further to get to work in the urban core. Zillow based its analysis of urban and suburban home values on a survey of how people define their own neighbourhoods as either urban, rural, or suburban and then used characteristics of those places to extrapolate the results and define ZIP codes all over the country. By looking at home values within those areas, Zillow could see how home values have fared in each type of place over the years. ‘This trend, in part, reflects home buyers' changing preferences, as they seek amenity-rich, dense and walkable areas that are often closer to their workplace,’ said Zillow chief economist Svenja Gudell. ‘In the future, this lifestyle trend will change some suburbs as we know them, and they'll start to feel more urban as buyers move further from city centres in search of affordable housing in communities that still feel urban,’ she added. Nationally, suburban home values grew 5.9% in 2015, while urban home prices increased by 7.5%. In 1997, urban home values grew at 3.8%, slower than suburban values which grew 4.1% that year. On a per square foot basis, home values for urban areas are way up, indicating that people are willing to pay more for less space to live in the city. In Washington, D.C., for example, urban homes in 1996 cost 6% more per square foot than suburban homes. Today, they cost 41% more per square foot. Taylor Scott International
Taylor Scott International, Taylor Scott
