It won’t surprise anyone that the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles and the Upper East Side in New York are among the most popular neighborhoods in the country on Zillow.
But who knew that the list of the most sought after neighborhoods also includes an enclave called Elkhorn, in Omaha, Nebraska? Or northwest of El Paso, the Texas border city? Or Encino, in the heart of Los Angeles’ often-mocked San Fernando Valley? Or anywhere in Lexington, Kentucky?
A new report examined recent home listings on Zillow, the real estate site, in the 100 largest US cities to find the neighborhoods with the most traffic, measured in average daily page views for each enclave.
The analysis found that Northeast Dallas, a fast-growing and mostly affordable neighborhood, garnered the most daily traffic of any large-city community, more than 36,000 daily Zillow page views. The average home in the neighborhood is valued at around $425,000.
According to D Magazine, Northeast Dallas “is dominated by the family-friendly neighborhood of Lake Highlands. . . . But on the west side of White Rock Creek, you’ll find both The Village (a sprawling apartment complex originally conceived as the center of the city’s singles life) and Vickery Meadow, an ethnically diverse neighborhood known for housing immigrants and refugees. ”.
Some people troll Zillow to see how the other half lives. Such would seem to be the case with the Hollywood Hills, one of the most famous addresses on Earth, home of the Hollywood sign. It ranks as Zillow’s second most popular search, with more than 32,000 daily page views. Median home value: $2 million.
Presumably few of those clients can afford to live in the Hollywood Hills. On Friday, a community website featured a listing on Flicker Way, with impressive views and a price tag of $72.5 million.
Third on the list of most popular neighborhoods: Camelback East, in Phoenix, a much more affordable address.
“It’s not in downtown Phoenix, but it’s close to downtown Phoenix. Lots of nightlife, lots of restaurants,” said Butch Leiber, president of Phoenix Realtors, of Camelback East. “You could call the busiest part of Phoenix. Not the most expensive part, nor the least expensive.
Zillow’s analysis comes from HouseFresh, a company that specializes in home air quality.
“I think the most surprising thing was the places we hadn’t heard of,” said Danny Ashton, the company’s founder.
La Jolla, fourth on the most sought after list, is one of the most impressive coastal communities in the world, the jewel of San Diego. And most Americans know New York’s Upper East Side, fifth on the list, with almost 25,000 daily visits. The average Upper East Side home is worth $1.3 million, reports Zillow.
Less well known, perhaps, are the Phoenix communities of North Mountain and Deer Valley, ranked 6th and 10thhe in the Zillow review.
“They are a little bit more affordable,” Leiber said. “North Mountain is very close to many hiking trails, wilderness, outdoor activities. North Mountain is probably as close to a mid-price point as you get in a Phoenix neighborhood.” (Median Home Value: $355,000.)
“Deer Valley is actually outside of Phoenix, but not too far, and you have a more suburban feel. But you still have a Phoenix zip code.”
Rounding out the top 10: Summerlin North, a vast and affluent master-planned community in Las Vegas dotted with $400,000, $500,000 and $600,000 homes; Elkhorn, an upper-middle-class community in Omaha; and Lakeview, a bustling enclave on Chicago’s North Side.
The rest of the list of hot neighborhoods bounces around the country: northwest El Paso, near the Texas-Mexico border; Preston Hollow, a luxurious Dallas enclave; Far North Dallas, a less expensive section of Big D; New York’s Upper West Side, the setting for the television series Seinfeld; and the San Fernando Valley communities of Encino and Woodland Hills, far less glamorous addresses than Hollywood Hills.
Sixteenth on the list: Chevy Chase-Ashland Park, home of Lexington, Kentucky’s Millionaires Row mansions.
“There are some beautiful cabins and bungalows mixed in with the mansions,” offers a local website, “but even those are $600,000 or more.”
Seventeenth: Brickell, a hot enclave in downtown Miami with stunning views of Biscayne Bay. Median Home Value: $600,000.
Zillow’s review comes at an appropriate time, when most people are just watching. Home sales plummeted in 2022 amid sky-high mortgage rates and record-high prices. The market is slowly recovering.
“A year or two ago, inventory levels were incredibly low, so people who wanted to buy bought everything they could get their hands on,” Leiber said. “Today, we have three times as many on the market. . . . The difference today is that our buyer activity is way, way down.”
The good news: It’s a buyer’s market.
“I think people today are looking for something that is move-in ready,” Leiber said. “They don’t want to move and they have to do any work.”
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