Zillow execs follow housing data to surprising conclusions http://www.buffalonews.com/business/...sions-20150201(click title for full article - or atleast until the Bufnews blocks access)




Eccerpt from Zillow article - "But that doesn’t mean everyone, everywhere should be a homebuyer. “Encouraging low-income families to invest in underperforming communities doesn’t free these families from the cycle of poverty – it further traps them in it,” they say.

To bolster their argument, they offer a study of home values over more than 15 years in Los Angeles and Chicago. The areas where values went up the most were affluent, while areas where values fell the most were generally poorer.


Across the nation, values in rich neighborhoods appreciate faster, averaging 60 percent higher returns than poorer ones.

“In essence, buyers in poorer neighborhoods are making investments with both lower rates of return and higher volatility – a dangerous combination that we see virtually nowhere else in the economy,” they write.