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Study Finds Detroit Tops List in Home Square Footage for $250K

CBS Detroit - In an article by Property Shark, the Detroit real estate market gets you much more home per square foot when compared to other U.S. cities. Property Shark is a blog site that features research, stories, and real estate industry news.

As they say, in real estate it's all about location. A tiny little shack next to a landfill may be worthless, but on Malibu Beach could be worth millions. The trend they say is that among Coronavirus, many Americans are looking to move out of congested cities and urban areas to more rural ones for their homes. As people feel safer and more isolated in rural areas, and with companies allowing and/or requiring employees to work from home, choosing a home with a short commute to the office is much less of a factor.

The article also cites with the closures of many businesses and cultural places from COVID-19, the attractions that drew people to live in the cities is less of an interest. Tied with working from home, having more living space needed for homes that are becoming remote offices, homes that offer more square footage in less congested areas are becoming the trend. With moving away from the city comes, more value too. As $54k can buy 1,000 square feet in Cleveland could be more than $1 million for the same square footage in Manhattan.

With $250,000 being the national median home price from 2018, Property Shark did an analysis on what a buyer could get in 100 of the United State's most populous cities. Adding a 5.1% price increase per the House Price Index.

Detroit rated the highest on the list in value, as $250K buys 5,407 sq.ft. In comparison, in Manhattan that would be a 232 sq.ft., 477 sq. ft. in D.C., 1,425 sq. ft. in Nashville, and 4,667 sq. ft. in Cleveland. For Detroiters, this means the cost-per-square-foot is only $46 versus Manhatten's $1,079. On the west coast in cities like LA, Long Beach, and Sandiego, you would get less than 600 sq. ft. Meanwhile in the south, in cities like San Antonio or El Paso, you can get around 2,500 sq.ft.

They did find dramatic differences in most populous cities. As most homes in Texas will buy more than 1,000 sq.ft. per $250K, as cities get more people living in them, prices increase. As San Diego's 523 sq.ft. per $250K.


© 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Information from PropertyShark.com contributed to this report.

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