Nataliia Natykach /Shutterstock |
Four of the five most popular U.S. neighborhoods are in Portland, Ore., and Seattle, based on for-sale real estate searches at Zillow.com in September.
Zillow reported that homes in Portland’s Hillside neighborhood were more frequently searched than homes in any other U.S. neighborhood tracked by Zillow during that month. Zillow has created a database of thousands of neighborhood boundaries for the largest U.S. cities.
The neighborhoods on this list tended toward the high end. All had Zillow Home Value Index values above those posted for their city as a whole in August. Seven out of the 10 neighborhoods had index values more than twice their city’s overall index value.
The two Atlanta neighborhoods on this list, Tuxedo Park and Chastain Park, showed the biggest value differences between the neighborhoods and the city as a whole. While Atlanta’s overall index value stood at $119,800 in August, these two neighborhoods had index values of $1.08 million and $665,700, respectively. That translates to more than nine times the city’s index value in Tuxedo Park and more than five times the city’s index value in Chastain Park.
Methodology: For this report, Zillow identified neighborhoods with the highest volume of home searches at Zillow.com during the month of September.
Zillow queried 11,005 neighborhoods in its database, measuring page views and number of properties. The "hottest" neighborhoods were measured by looking at how many page views each property in a given neighborhood received, rather than just the total number of for-sale properties in that neighborhood.
Zillow also examined the number of properties to ensure a statistically significant sample — the query included neighborhoods with 25 or more for-sale properties. For example, a neighborhood with 500 for-sale properties with 10 page views each is less "hot" than a neighborhood with 100 for-sale properties with 50 page views each. This better tracks neighborhoods with high demand, rather than just a high number of homes.
The charts in this report compare Zillow’s home-value index for each neighborhood area to the index value for the entire city area.
Zillow’s Zestimate home valuations are the basis for the Zillow Home Value Index. A Zestimate is Zillow’s estimate of the current market value for a home. The Zillow Home Value Index is the median Zestimate valuation for a given geographic area on a given day. Zillow generates valuations several times a week on more than 70 million homes, or roughly three out of four homes in the U.S., and calculates historical values dating back to 1997. —Source: Zillow.
Neighborhood: Hillside
City: Portland, Ore.
August 2011 Zillow Home Value Index (Hillside) | $562,200 |
August 2011 ZHVI (Portland) | $228,000 |
Value difference of neighborhood (by percent) | 147% |
Value difference (in dollars) | $334,200 |
Portland’s Hillside neighborhood. Image courtesy of PortlandConnected.com.
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Neighborhood: Laurelhurst
City: Seattle
August 2011 Zillow Home Value Index (Laurelhurst) | $772,900 |
August 2011 ZHVI (Seattle) | $346,700 |
Value difference of neighborhood (by percent) | 123% |
Value difference (in dollars) | $426,200 |
Seattle’s Laurelhurst neighborhood. Flickr/soggydan
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Neighborhood: Southwest Hills
City: Portland, Ore.
August 2011 Zillow Home Value Index (Southwest Hills) | $521,400 |
August 2011 ZHVI (Portland) | $228,000 |
Value difference of neighborhood (by percent) | 129% |
Value difference (in dollars) | $293,400 |
Portland’s Southwest Hills neighborhood. Flickr/Jason McHuff
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Neighborhood: Palma Ceia
City: Tampa, Fla.
August 2011 Zillow Home Value Index (Palma Ceia) | $270,400 |
August 2011 ZHVI (Tampa) | $90,800 |
Value difference of neighborhood (by percent) | 198% |
Value difference (in dollars) | $179,600 |
Downtown Tampa, Fla., at night. Henryk Sadura/Shutterstock
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Neighborhood: Montlake
City: Seattle
August 2011 Zillow Home Value Index (Montlake) | $609,400 |
August 2011 ZHVI (Seattle) | $346,700 |
Value difference of neighborhood (by percent) | 76% |
Value difference (in dollars) | $262,700 |
Seattle’s Montlake Bridge. Flickr/stevevoght
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Neighborhood: Country Club
City: Denver
August 2011 Zillow Home Value Index (Country Club) | $665,600 |
August 2011 ZHVI (Denver) | $193,500 |
Value difference of neighborhood (by percent) | 244% |
Value difference (in dollars) | $472,100 |
The gates of the Country Club neighborhood in Denver. Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Beall.
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Neighborhood: Tuxedo Park
City: Atlanta
August 2011 Zillow Home Value Index (Tuxedo Park) | $1.08 million |
August 2011 ZHVI (Atlanta) | $119,800 |
Value difference of neighborhood (by percent) | 802% |
Value difference (in dollars) | $961,000 |
Atlanta’s uptown district of Buckhead, pictured here, is surrounded by a series of suburban neighborhoods including Tuxedo Park. Flickr/Brokentaco
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Neighborhood: Chastain Park
City: Atlanta
August 2011 Zillow Home Value Index (Chastain Park) | $665,700 |
August 2011 ZHVI (Atlanta) | $119,800 |
Value difference of neighborhood (by percent) | 456% |
Value difference (in dollars) | $545,900 |
Home in Atlanta’s Chastain Park neighborhood. Flickr/Conrad Lyles Realtors
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Neighborhood: Sunnyside
City: Portland, Ore.
August 2011 Zillow Home Value Index (Sunnyside) | $291,900 |
August 2011 ZHVI (Portland) | $228,000 |
Value difference of neighborhood (by percent) | 28% |
Value difference (in dollars) | $63,900 |
A colorful home in Portland’s Sunnyside neighborhood. Flickr/thekirbster
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Neighborhood: Mission Valley
City: Fremont, Calif.
August 2011 Zillow Home Value Index (Mission Valley) | $843,000 |
August 2011 ZHVI (Fremont) | $491,400 |
Value difference of neighborhood (by percent) | 72% |
Value difference (in dollars) | $351,600 |
Old school building off of Mission Boulevard in Fremont, Calif. Flickr/robscomputer