RealtyTrac and Local Market Monitor released a special report that shows the top housing markets for good health and building real estate wealth are in Texas, North and South Dakota, Utah, North Carolina, California, Tennessee, Montana, Wyoming, Iowa and Arkansas.
“While families have many good options across the country in terms of places where healthy living is evident and the prospect of appreciating home prices is solid, there are some markets that clearly stand head and shoulders above the rest,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “The markets considered for the Health and Wealth list all have strong appreciation potential. Some are healthier than others. This report not only features those top markets for appreciation but also highlights important health- and wealth-related factors for families to research in any market before they make the decision to buy a home.”
“Affordable homeownership with significant upside, robust economic growth and an active outdoor lifestyle are meaningful factors for all homebuyers, especially for families looking to relocate from other parts of the country,” said Steve Roney, CEO and Owner of Prudential Utah Real Estate. “With two of our largest metropolitan markets in the top 12 markets nationwide, Utah is clearly a desirable place to live and buy a home.”
Health ratings are based on 10 factors from RealtyTrac data across three major categories. Each factor is compared to an average across a large number of U.S. markets. Wealth ratings were added for Local Market Monitor’s 22 top picks for home price appreciation. Combining these factors, 12 markets were selected as Top Markets for both good health and building real estate wealth.
“RealtyTrac recognized that, while health is extremely important to many families, it can be difficult to choose a market based on overall health because there are many different factors,” said RealtyTrac Chief Economist Jake Adger. “To account for this, we ranked a large number of U.S. markets according to health ratings summarizing lifestyle, chronic disease rates and the environment. These ratings are based on 10 data points chosen from the wealth of RealtyTrac data.”
Local Market Monitor’s top 22 markets for home price appreciation were used to identify the best markets for building real estate wealth. The factors of lower-than-average unemployment and high foreclosure discounts were also used to determine the overall wealth score.
Home prices bottomed out in most local markets over the past couple of years and are now on the upswing. In many places this upswing will be significant because prices are well below the levels that are 'normal' - not boom levels but the levels that local income can support. Put an economic recovery on top of that, add very little construction in the past five years, and you have a highly favorable situation for anyone looking for sustained increases in home value.
“We are at a stage of the economic cycle where there are more positive than negative factors in front of us,” said Ingo Winzer, president at Local Market Monitor. “Despite the somewhat modest national recovery, there are plenty of local markets with excellent economic growth and good potential for the long run. These are places where you'll like to live, not just because investments in real estate or local businesses are more likely to be successful, but because they are dynamic places.”
“We've never seen a real estate recession — call it a crash — like the one we just went through,” Winzer continued. “The good news is that there are local markets where the crash is not only over, but where the lack of home construction in the last five years and a resurgence of economic growth will create a shortage of housing and a surge in home values.”
