Here are the nation’s 20 hottest neighborhoods
It will surprise no one that the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles and New York’s Upper East Side rank among the nation’s hottest neighborhoods on Zillow.
But who knew that the list of most-searched neighborhoods also includes an enclave called Elkhorn, in Omaha, Nebraska? Or Northwest El Paso, the Texas border town? Or Encino, in the heart of L.A.’s oft-mocked San Fernando Valley? Or anyplace in Lexington, Kentucky?
A new report examined recent home listings on Zillow, the real-estate site, in the 100 largest U.S. cities to find the neighborhoods with the most traffic, as measured in average daily pageviews for each enclave.
The analysis found that Northeast Dallas, a fast-growing, mostly affordable neighborhood, reaped the most daily traffic of any big-city community, more than 36,000 Zillow daily pageviews. The neighborhood’s average home is valued around $425,000.
According to D Magazine, Northeast Dallas “is dominated by the family-friendly Lake Highlands neighborhood. . . . But on the west side of White Rock Creek, you’ll find both the Village (a huge apartment community originally conceived as the center of the city’s singles life) and Vickery Meadow, an ethnically diverse neighborhood known for housing immigrants and refugees.”
Some people troll Zillow to see how the other half lives. Such would seem to the case with Hollywood Hills, one of the most famous addresses on Earth, home to the Hollywood sign. It ranks as the second most popular Zillow search, with more than 32,000 daily pageviews. Average home value: $2 million.
Few of those customers, presumably, can afford to live in the Hollywood Hills. On Friday, a community website featured a listing on Flicker Way, with breathtaking views and a $72.5 million price tag.
Third on the hottest neighborhoods list: Camelback East, in Phoenix, a far more affordable address.
“It’s not in downtown Phoenix, but it’s close to downtown Phoenix. Lots of nightlife, lots of restaurants,” said Butch Leiber, president of Phoenix Realtors, of Camelback East. “You could call it the busiest part of Phoenix. Not the most expensive part, not the least expensive.”
The Zillow analysis comes from HouseFresh, a company that specializes in household air quality.
“I think what was most surprising was the places we hadn’t heard about,” said Danny Ashton, the company’s founder.
La Jolla, fourth on the most-searched list, is one of the most stunning seaside communities in the world, the jewel of San Diego. And most Americans know New York’s Upper East Side, fifth on the list, with nearly 25,000 daily pageviews. The average Upper East Side home is worth $1.3 million, Zillow reports.
Less familiar, perhaps, are the Phoenix communities of North Mountain and Deer Valley, ranked sixth and 10th in the Zillow analysis.
“They’re a little more affordable,” Leiber said. “North Mountain is really close to a lot of hiking trails, desert, outdoor activities. North Mountain is probably as close to a medium price point as a Phoenix neighborhood gets.” (Average home value: $355,000.)
“Deer Valley’s actually out of Phoenix, but not too far, and you have a more suburban feel. But you still have a Phoenix zip code.”
Rounding out the top 10: Summerlin North, a vast, prosperous planned community in Las Vegas, dotted with $400,000, $500,000 and $600,000 homes; Elkhorn, an upper-middle-class community in Omaha; and Lakeview, a bustling enclave on Chicago’s North Side.
The remainder of the hot neighborhoods list bounces around the country: Northwest El Paso, near the Texas-Mexico border; Preston Hollow, a ritzy Dallas enclave; Far North Dallas, a less pricey section of Big D; New York’s Upper West Side, the setting for television’s Seinfeld; and the San Fernando Valley communities of Encino and Woodland Hills, far less glamorous addresses than the Hollywood Hills.
Sixteenth on the list: Chevy Chase-Ashland Park, home to the Millionaires Row mansions of Lexington, Kentucky.
“There are some handsome cottages and bungalows mixed in with the mansions,” a local website offers, “but even those go for $600,000 or more.”
Seventeenth: Brickell, a hot enclave in central Miami, with breathtaking views of the Biscayne Bay. Average home value: $600,000.
The Zillow analysis comes at a fitting moment, when most people are only looking. Home sales plummeted in 2022, amid soaring mortgage rates and historically high prices. The market is slowly rebounding.
“A year or two ago, the inventory levels were incredibly low, so people who wanted to buy were buying whatever they could get,” Leiber said. “Today, we have three times as much on the market. . . . The difference today is that our buyer activity is way, way down.”
The good news: It’s a buyer’s market.
“I think people today are looking for something that’s move-in ready,” Leiber said. “They don’t want to move in and have to do any work.”
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