ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property, and real estate data, has officially released its second-quarter 2024 report, which focused on analyzing qualified low-income Opportunity Zones targeted by Congress for economic redevelopment in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. In essence, the stated report took into account more than 3,904 zones around the United States with sufficient data to analyze, meaning the zone had to have at least five home sales in the given quarter. After conducting an extensive analysis on this data, the report revealed that median prices of single-family homes and condos increased from the first to the second quarter of 2024 in 1,932 (61 percent) Opportunity Zones around the U.S, while staying the same or decreasing in 39 percent of them. Furthermore, the medians in question remained up from the second quarter of 2023 to the same period this year across 2,140 (62 percent) of zones. Backing up the validity attached these findings is how, among all the Opportunity Zones included in ATTOM’s report, 3,185 had enough data to generate usable median-price comparisons from the first to the second quarter of 2024; whereas 3,456 had enough data to make comparisons between the second quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2024. Next up, we must acknowledge that Opportunity Zones did even better than the rest of the nation when comparing price changes to shifts in the national median home price. You see, median values in 45 percent of Opportunity Zones went up from the first to the second quarter of this year by more than the 9 percent in annual gain nationwide. Markedly enough, the same was evident in slightly less – 41 percent – of local housing markets outside the zones.
Having said so, median prices were up quarterly and annually in only about 45 percent of Opportunity Zones where homes commonly sold for less than $125,000 during the second quarter of 2024. Moving on, out of states that had at least 25 Opportunity Zones with enough data to analyze during the second quarter of 2024, the largest portions where median prices increased quarterly were in Massachusetts (medians up from the first to the second quarter of 2024 in 73 percent of zones). Joining the same were Maryland (68 percent), Oregon (68 percent), New York (67 percent) and Virginia (65 percent). States where prices were up quarterly in the smallest portion of zones included Georgia (median prices up in 50 percent of zones), Louisiana (53 percent), Minnesota (56 percent), Kentucky (56 percent) and California (56 percent). Another detail worth a mention claims that, from the 3,904 zones in the report, 1,148 (29 percent) had median prices below $150,000 in the second quarter of 2024. This marked a decrease from 34 percent of zones and almost 60 percent five years ago. Alongside the same, 647 zones (17 percent) had medians in the second quarter of this year ranging from $150,000 to $199,999.
Hold on, there is more, considering we haven’t touched on how median values in the second quarter of 2024 ranged from $200,000 to $299,999 in 23 percent Opportunity Zones, while simultaneously topping the nationwide second-quarter median of $365,000 in just 20 percent. Lastly, the report found that the Midwest continued in the second quarter of 2024 to have larger portions of lowest-priced Opportunity Zone tracts, as median home prices were less than $175,000 in 61 percent of zones across the region.
“The trickle-down impact of the extended housing market boom across the U.S. continues to uplift many neighborhoods in need, revealing their economic potential,” said Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM. “This pattern is especially evident in Opportunity Zones as house hunters priced out of more-expensive areas turn to places they can afford. While gains inside these zones vary, many are experiencing price increases, demonstrating the momentum necessary to attract the investments that the Opportunity Zone model is designed to generate.”
