Property data curator ATTOM released its second-quarter 2024 report analyzing qualified low-income Opportunity Zones targeted by Congress for economic redevelopment in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
For this report, ATTOM looked at 3,904 zones with sufficient data to analyze, meaning they had at least five home sales in the second quarter.
The report found that median single-family home and condo prices increased from the first to second quarter in 61 percent of Opportunity Zones around the country with enough data to measure. They were up annually in 62 percent of the zones analyzed.
Amid a nationwide price surge during the annual springtime homebuying season, median prices inside nearly half of the zones analyzed shot up more than 10 percent quarterly and annually.
Those trends continued a long-term pattern of home values inside Opportunity Zones moving parallel to broader nationwide shifts for at least the last three years. That pattern has remained in place regardless of whether prices have surged, grown modestly or ticked downward.
“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,” Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM, said in a release. “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.”
The second-quarter price spikes were mixed, raising fortunes more so in higher-priced Opportunity Zones, while benefiting fewer of the very lowest-priced neighborhoods. Nevertheless, the broad picture remained one of ongoing economic strength, or limited weakness, inside some of the country’s most distressed communities compared to other markets around the country.
By a few measures, Opportunity Zones price trends even showed signs, yet again, of doing somewhat better than the nation as a whole during the second quarter of 2024. For example, increases in median home-values outpaced national gains in a slightly larger portion of zones than elsewhere.
Amid economic limitations, most Opportunity Zones still had typical home values that fell well below those in other markets around the nation in the second quarter of 2024. Median second-quarter prices inside 80 percent of the zones were less than the U.S. median of $365,000. That was about the same portion as in earlier periods over the past three years. In addition, median prices remained under $200,000 in almost half the zones.