Pittsburgh’s second ward, which includes portions of downtown and the Strip District, is number 2 on a list of the top 35 areas for home sales and home price appreciations over the last decade. Several other areas of the city also made the list.
“Communities like North Side, Lawrenceville, Southside,” said RealSTATs Vice President Daniel Murrer, “it was really good to see the appreciation going on in the city of Pittsburgh, and a lot of that we attribute to investors going into rundown properties, gutting them, then selling them for a higher price.”
Adams Township was the gold medal winner, Peters Township in Washington County was the Bronze winner. Murrer said RealSTATs, a Pittsburgh-based real estate information company, went with an Olympic medal theme in honor of this summer’s games. There were eight categories:
- Average home price, 2011 (#1: Sewickley Heights Borough)
- Average home price percentage appreciation, 2000-2011 (#1: Donegal Township)
- Median home price, 2011 (#1: Sewickley Heights Borough)
- Median home price percentage appreciation, 200-2011 (#1: Pittsburgh 2nd Ward)
- Total dollar volume, 2011 (#1: Cranberry Township)
- Increase in dollar investment, 2000-2011 (#1: Adams Township)
- Number of home sales, 2011 (#1: Cranberry Township)
- Increase in number of home sales, 2011-2011 (#1: Adams Townships)
Communities received points in each of the categories; the overall ranking is the total from all eight areas – the top ten communities or neighborhoods were ranked and given points in each category – overall 35 areas received points. There were some surprises in the report.
“One thing that struck us in the report is how strong the neighborhoods in the City of Pittsburgh performed,” said Murrer, “if you contemplate – 400 municipalities in southwestern Pennsylvania, in some of those categories you have 6 or 8 top 10 finishers from the City of Pittsburgh.”
According to the report, which examined more than 400 communities in southwestern Pennsylvania, families spent more than $3.7 billion buying more than 20,000 homes.
The report came as good news to city leaders.
“To see Pittsburgh at the top of the list out of over 400 competing communities is remarkable,” said Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. “These numbers tell us that our strategy to drive more residential development Downtown and into more neighborhoods is working.”
