Million-Dollar Neighborhoods Take a Hit from NYC to California

(Bloomberg) -- Million-dollar neighborhoods are taking a hit.

The number of areas with a median price of $1 million has fallen to 628 from a peak of 636 in March, based on a Bloomberg analysis of Zillow data from 1996 through June covering single-family homes in almost 7,300 U.S. localities.

Forty-four neighborhoods where the price once exceeded the benchmark have slipped below, but others have moved up, including Lighthouse Hill in Staten Island, New York, where the median value crossed the seven-digit mark in March. Marinwood in San Rafael, California, and Lido Key, in Sarasota, Florida, joined the million-dollar club last month.

Areas that recently dipped below the mark include Holliswood in New York’s Queens borough, where the median price first scaled $1 million in July 2018 and remained there until April; in June it was $991,300. San Diego’s Sorrento Valley surpassed $1 million last August before falling to $995,000 in May and $991,000 last month.

The Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington. D.C. -- home to the State Department, International Monetary Fund and World Bank -- slid out this past spring. The median price in June was $964,000, $64,100 below the July 2018 peak.

More than two dozen other areas are on the verge of following their lead. The median in the Mount Pleasant section of D.C., has fallen to $1,013,600 from a $1,048,300 peak last December, and the North Valley neighborhood of San Jose, California, slumped more than $71,000 from last November to $1,024,000.

Single-family homes in three sections of New York City have seen declines in excess of $2 million from estimated peak valuations, even though medians there remain well above $1 million. The Upper East Side and Greenwich Village peaked in March 2017; West Village peaked two years earlier.

Three million-dollar Brooklyn neighborhoods were among New York City’s biggest percentage gainers. Twenty years ago, the median price in Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bedford Stuyvesant was about $150,000 or less. In June, it was $1,618,300, $1,339,500 and $1,123,500 respectively.

Even with the recent drop in the number of million dollar neighborhoods, areas over the $1 million mark have still increased 50% in the last five years.

Data is based on Zillow’s Home Value Index, a smoothed, seasonally adjusted measure of the median estimated home value.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Tanzi in Washington at atanzi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Tanzi at atanzi@bloomberg.net, Melinda Grenier

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.