The Bay Area Has the Fewest Underwater Homes in the U.S. in 2018
- A WalletHub study ranks the city of Santa Clara as the nation’s fourth best housing market this year.
- Santa Clara, Berkeley, San Mateo, Sunnyvale, and San Jose have the smallest percentages of homes with negative equity in the U.S.
- The Contra Costa County city of Richmond ranks as America’s fastest-appreciating housing market.
Homeowners in five Bay Area cities are doing the best in America when it comes to accruing equity, helping to propel a Silicon Valley community to near the top of a list of the country’s leading estate markets.
A new WalletHub analysis ranks 300 U.S. real estate markets on a 100-point scale based on their investment potential. The 22 indicators used to gauge America’s best housing markets include projected home value, median appreciation, fewest days on market, affordability, and employment situation.
The city of Santa Clara ranks as the nation’s fourth best housing market based on the report’s criteria, earning a total score of 73.79. Santa City earns the No. 1 ranking in the broad real estate market category but falls near the bottom on the affordability and economic environment gauge.
Santa Clara counts among the five cities in the U.S. with the lowest percentage of homes with negative equity. The other four are also in the Bay Area: Berkeley, San Mateo, Sunnyvale, and San Jose.
Sunnyvale is the other Bay Area city to rank among the country’s 20 best real estate markets in 2018, notching a 70.71. Sunnyvale places No. 2 for its real estate market but like neighboring Santa Clara comes in near the bottom for affordability. Sunnyvale is among the five American cities where homeowners spend the highest percentage of their incomes on a home, along with San Mateo, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley.
On the plus side for Silicon Valley homeowners, both Santa Clara and Sunnyvale are among the half-dozen U.S. cities with the lowest number of delinquent mortgage holders, while the latter has one the nation’s smallest foreclosure rates. And news is good for sellers in those two Silicon Valley communities, which are two of the six fastest-paced housing markets in America, along with San Jose, San Francisco, and Concord.
WalletHub calls the Contra Costa County city of Richmond America’s fastest-appreciating housing market, followed closely by Oakland in the No. 3 position. Neither city ranks in the top 50 best U.S. real estate markets, hampered by low affordability conditions like other Bay Area communities.
(Image: iStock/vicnt)