Cities and “Gayborhoods”: Where Home Prices Are Rising Fastest

• June 25, 2013
• 3 Comments

by Shilpi Paul

Photo courtesy of redjoe

On the heels of the latest Case-Shiller report, which revealed price gains across the country, Trulia Trends dug into data to see if there are any specific places, within metro areas, where prices are rising the fastest.

Trulia found that home prices in urban neighborhoods appear to be gaining faster than their suburban counterparts, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Throughout the country, the median price per square foot was up 11.3 percent year-over-year in urban neighborhoods, and up 10.2 percent in suburban neighborhoods. In the DC area, urban home prices rose 7.7 percent this year, compared to 6.8 percent in the suburbs.

From there, Trulia found a few more interesting trends. Home prices in racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods, where no group had the majority, rose faster than the average, increasing by 14.3 percent annually. And in so-called “gayborhoods,” prices rose fast as well. In neighborhoods where more than 1 percent of the population consists of same-sex male couples, prices increased by 13.8 percent, while neighborhoods where more than 1 percent of the population are same-sex female couples, home prices rose 16.5 percent.

Though we don’t have the specific numbers for DC, in an earlier article, we reported that male couples made up 3.3 percent of the population in Dupont Circle and Logan Circle, while Takoma Park, MD had a statistically higher number of female couples.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/biggest_price_gains_in_diverse_urban_neighborhoods_and_gayborhoods/7244

3 Comments

1. Zesty said at 7:50 pm on Tuesday June 25, 2013:
   Men, on average earn more than women. So, two men would, on average, have higher combined income than a man and a woman. No surprise there. I think the bit about female couples deserves more analysis; I would like to know what are the trends that correlates with the higher home prices? Are female couples more highly educated, on average, than male/female couples?

1. Mark Near RFK said at 8:56 pm on Tuesday June 25, 2013:
   I cannot find them now, but I believe I have seen reports that lesbians actually earn less than the average woman. Faster home price rises may indicate that they are exemplars of the pioneering and redeveloping characteristics often attributed to same-sex couples.

1. Evan Johnson said at 10:48 pm on Tuesday June 25, 2013:
   Where I find the article interesting and I am one of those same-sex male couples, I would love to see the data on non-couple households as well. Taking just the couples seems to limit the data. As a Realtor, I find about 75% of my buyers and sellers are LGBT but only about 50% are "couples" vers single(at least on paper). Lastly, "gayborhood" seems to mean less and less as the LGBT community is more regional or an entire city vs. just a neighborhood. It would be interesting to see where that term is in 20 years. Cheers, Evan Johnson http://evanjohnson.com