Why Opportunity Zones Won Big In Q2

Pricing spikes in opportunity zone redevelopment areas kept pace with rising home values nationally in the second quarter, a new analysis from ATTOM reveals.

Median home price values rose annually by at least 15% nationally, and increases in opportunity zones were on par with those outside of the zones. In a new report, ATTOM analyzed 5,236 zones across the United States with sufficient sales data to analyze, meaning they had at least five home sales in the second quarter of 2021.

ATTOM’s research found that median single-family home prices increased from the second quarter of 2020 to the second quarter of 2021 in 75 percent of opportunity zones and rose by at least 15 percent in about half of those regions. 

“Price patterns in opportunity zones continued to roughly track trends in other areas of the US, even surpassing them in some ways, much as they did in the first quarter of this year,” ATTOM noted in a statement dissecting the data. 

While home values in opportunity zones lagged “well behind” the national median of $205,000 in Q2, values in some of the nation’s poorest communities surged alongside the larger national market. 

“Housing markets kept chugging along in some of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods during the second quarter of this year in another sign that the decade long home-price boom across the nation knows pretty much no boundaries. Values kept rising inside specially designated opportunity zones at around the same rate as they did in other areas even as the Coronavirus pandemic continued causing economic hardship,” said Todd Teta, chief product officer with ATTOM. “For sure, property values in opportunity zones remain depressed. But the price spikes there not only suggest that those communities are a very viable option for households priced out of more-upscale neighborhoods. They also indicate the ongoing potential for the economic revival that underpins the opportunity zone tax breaks.”