Metro Atlanta residents who live near two popular grocery chains may enjoy more than access to specialty foods.
Homes within a mile of either Trader Joe's or Whole Foods appreciate faster than other homes, according to a new analysis by Zillow, an online real estate marketplace. Between 1997 and 2014, these homes consistently were appraised for more than the U.S. median home price. The same homes were valued at more than twice the national median home price by the end of 2014.
"Like Starbucks, the stores have become an amenity in their own right – a signal to the home-buying public that the neighborhood they're located in is desirable, perhaps up-and-coming, and definitely improving," Zillow group chief economist Stan Humphries said in a statement. "Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the stores may actually drive home prices. Even if they open in neighborhoods where home prices have lagged those in the wider city, they start to outperform the city overall once the stores arrive."
Based on the study data, homes in metro Atlanta near these locations appreciate the fastest:
North Fulton County
Trader Joe’s: 3183 Peachtree Road, Atlanta, 30305
Whole Foods: 77 West Paces Ferry Road NW, Atlanta 30305
Trader Joe’s: 931 Monroe Drive, Atlanta, 30308
Whole Foods: 650 Ponce de Leon Ave. NE, Atlanta, 30308
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Trader Joe’s: 635 W. Crossville Road, Roswell, 30075
Trader Joe’s: 6277 Roswell Road NE, Sandy Springs, 30328
Whole Foods: 5930 Roswell Road, Atlanta, 30328
Whole Foods: 2800 Old Milton Parkway, Alpharetta, 30009
Whole Foods: 5945 State Bridge Road, Johns Creek, 30097
Cobb County
Trader Joe’s: 4250 Roswell Road NE, Marietta, 30062
Whole Foods: 1311 Johnson Ferry Road NE, Suite 580, Marietta, 30068
Whole Foods: 70 Powers Ferry Road SE, Marietta, 30067
Gwinnett County
Trader Joe’s: 5185 Peachtree Parkway, Norcross, 30092
DeKalb County
Whole Foods: 2111 Briarcliff Road NE, Atlanta, 30329
The study concludes that Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are either good at choosing locations where homes will appreciate faster or that the brands are causing home appreciation growth – or both.
"The grocery store phenomenon is about more than groceries," Zillow Group CEO Spencer Rascoff said in a statement. "It says something about the way people want to live – in the type of neighborhood favored by the generations buying homes now. Today's homebuyers seek things in neighborhoods that weren't even in real estate agents' vocabularies a generation ago: walkability, community, new urbanism – and maybe we should add words like 'sustainable seafood' and 'organic pears.' "
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