Gentrification is a trend in urban neighborhoods; it refers to shifts in an urban community lifestyle and an increasing share of wealthier residents and businesses…as well as an increase in property values. Many gentrified neighborhoods of the present were once affluent neighborhoods of the past.
In a gentrifying neighborhood, new buyers fix up older homes that, in turn, attract more remodel-ready buyers and new businesses. For many real estate investors and homeowners, these gentrifying neighborhoods represent a great place to live, and their initial investment could rise above the metro area norm as the area improves.
ATTOM Data Solutions company recently analyzed data in 3,561 U.S. zip codes with a combined population of 124 million to select the 35 best gentrifying neighborhoods to buy a home. Number 14 on that list is zip code 33150, in Miami-Dade: El Portal, Miami Shores.
To make the final cut, zip codes had to have a population of at least 2,500, an increase in the number of construction loans over the past 12 months, an average home flipping gross return of at least 60 percent, with millennials (born between 1984 and 2000) representing at least 25 percent of the total population and increasing in share of population from 2013 to 2014. Additionally, the zip code’s highest scoring elementary school needed to be below the state average in 2015, and the share of underwater homes in the zip code needed to be at least 15 percent — above the national average.
Daren Blomquist, ATTOM Data Solutions’ senior vice president points out, “The underperforming school scores and inflated rates of underwater homes in these markets demonstrates they are lagging the housing recovery, but it’s clearly evident from this data that many individuals and institutions are betting on these hyperlocal housing markets to still bounce back.”