Using data from thousands of customer visits to Redfin.com, combined with the local expertise of our real estate agents, Redfin.com presents an early look at which neighborhoods will be hot in 2017. High-growth job centers are driving the hottest neighborhoods for 2017, but not in the way you’d expect. Data on homebuyer activity on Redfin.com takes us just outside the city limits of these tech hubs to find the neighborhoods that are heating up this year. The top three hottest neighborhoods all sit close to San Francisco and Seattle. But while home prices continue to rise in the centers of these booming tech cities, homebuyers are increasingly focusing their searches in neighboring communities. While many of 2017’s hottest neighborhoods come with longer commutes, Redfin agents say they offer homebuyers the best balance of everything: quick access to public transit, trendy shopping and dining options, plus larger move-in ready homes with charm and price tags that are a little easier to bear.
This continues a trend we started seeing in 2016, when San Francisco dropped from the ranks of Redfin’s 10 hottest neighborhoods. This year, Bushrod in nearby Oakland takes center stage as the nation’s hottest neighborhood. Although this is Oakland’s first appearance on a Redfin Hottest Neighborhoods list, it experienced soaring demand in late 2016.
“Redfin research shows that over the past five years, home prices in urban cores have shot up 50 percent faster than in the metro areas as a whole,” said Redfin chief economist Nela Richardson. “Our data on homebuyer activity shows that this year people are bypassing the most expensive areas in the center city in search for high-end amenities and renovated homes a few train or bus stops outside the city limits. The hottest neighborhoods of 2017 will be those edge communities that deliver urban convenience at prices that are closer to earth.”
In December, Redfin predicted that 2017 would be the year of the second-tier city and the emergence of hot neighborhoods in cities like Portland, Sacramento and New Orleans are proving that to be true.
Neighborhoods that made the top 10 list, such as Eliot in Portland, Hollywood Park in Sacramento and Treme in New Orleans, feature renovated homes that preserve the nature and charm of the area while offering updated amenities. This wave of renovation, coupled with increased demand, is causing a significant increase in home prices. Eliot and Hollywood Park both saw home prices rise 30 percent in the last year, and Treme rose 75 percent over the same period.
