Top markets for home value growth
If you’re looking to buy a house in 2020, you may want to head south. According to a new survey of economists and experts, that’s where home values will grow the most this year, with Austin, Texas, at the No. 1 spot.
High hopes for home values
According to a recent survey, economists and industry experts expect Austin, Texas, to see the biggest jump in home values this year. A whopping 83% of those surveyed said they expect the city to outperform national averages in 2020.
Atlanta came in second, with 63% saying the home value growth would out-best the nation’s average this year. Charlotte, North Carolina, was third, with 59% of experts saying so.
Many other southern markets also made the list.
As Skylar Olsen, Zillow’s director of economic research, explains: “Of the 14 markets that received a positive score — a higher share of panelists said they expected the market to outperform than underperform — 11 were in Texas or elsewhere in the Southwest or Southeast. Portland, Minneapolis and Denver were the only non-Southern markets to make the list of those expected to outperform.”
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What it means for homebuyers
If the predictions ring true, buyers who get in early in these markets can see their home equity grow substantially in 2020.
Between Q3 2018 and Q3 2019, the average homeowner gained a whopping $5,300 in home equity.
In Idaho, homeowners saw a jump of nearly $26,000, while those in Wyoming and Utah had increased of $24,000 and $21,000.
Homeowners in this state gained $25K in equity this year
Where home value optimism is waning
It’s not all good news for buyers and homeowners, though. The same survey also reveals a host of cities where experts expect home values to underperform the national average.
At the top of that list? That’d be major California cities like San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Riverside.
“And panelists didn’t just expect those large California markets to underperform, but maybe still grow slightly — in many cases, they said they expected the typical home values in those places to outright fall, ending 2020 lower than where they began the year,” Olsen said.
Cincinnati is also expected to underperform by nearly half of all experts surveyed.
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