The Best and Worst USA Real Estate Markets in 2017
It is once again the time of year when we get to reflect back on the route the real estate market decided to take this past year. Combining research conducted from a variety of sources, this article takes a close look at how real estate markets performed across the United States, focusing on the top 50 most populated metropolitan areas in the country.
The Best for Real Estate Investors
This year, Nashville, Tennessee takes away the gold with its 12.8% year-by-year rate of appreciation combined with its average-compared-to-the-others 6.32% rent-to-value ratio. However, it is by no means surprising that the appreciation has been as great as it has for those who reside in Nashville, nor to anyone who has been closely watching the real estate market of the city over the past couple of years. This is because according to GoBankingRates, home prices have been increasing at a rapid rate over the past few years in the city. Ranging from April 2015 to April 2017, the median listing price for a property increased by nearly 30%.
However it doesn’t stop there for a blessed year for the Southerners. With Louisville, Kentucky; Memphis, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; and three Florida cities (Miami, Orlando and Tampa) making up the top ten, it has been a mighty good year for the South. Then rounding out the rest of the top ten includes Detroit, Michigan; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Seattle, Washington.
The Worst for Real Estate Investors
Overall, the worst real estate markets to invest in the USA had pretty poor rent-to-value ratios (the real estate investors received little rent per dollar value of their property) in addition to seeing little appreciation during the year.
According to research, Hartford, Connecticut topped the ‘worst’ list this year as they didn’t offer a lot of opportunities for residential real estate investors. Being near the bottom of the list for its rent-to-value ratios and having an average home value appreciation rate of merely 7%, there just wasn’t much to be proud of this year round.
The largest Californian real estate markets also were near the bottom of the list. California investors continued to witness some of the poorest rent-to-value ratios in the nation even though there was still some relatively decent appreciation in value as overall, this year had been a good year nationwide for appreciation. Hence, if investors in California want to earn returns that are competitive to those in the top of the study’s list, they will need to be able see some amazing appreciation rates as their rent-to-value ratios are found among some of the worst in the nation.
Completing the rest of this list, Maryland/Washington, D.C./Virginia regions, New Orleans and Houston, Texas had a pretty poor year in comparison to other metropolitan areas in the country with an annual appreciation of approximately 3.5% and an average rent-to-value ratio.