Can Cityhood Affect Home Prices

Greenhaven is back again as City of DeKalb by the same group of folk that are now calling themselves DeKalb Cityhood. One of the arguments against City of DeKalb and Greenhaven has been that it will lower property values. The statistics shown below are just a one year snapshot of the value of homes sold between January 1, 2021-December 30, 2021 vs. January 1, 2020-December 30, 2020. The past year was one of the hottest markets on record in the Atlanta area so you’d expect most areas would have increased prices in homes sold. That was true, but according to reports pulled from Georgia MLS, Stonecrest didn’t do as well and, in fact, prices of homes sold during that period decreased in value!

We took a sampling of zip codes in unincorporated DeKalb including East Atlanta 30316 and Decatur 30032, 30034 and 30035 and compared them with Stonecrest. We looked at homes sold on Georgia MLS during the past two years and compared the increase or decrease in price. The following is what we found.

As you can see by the chart above homes sold year over year in Stonecrest decreased by nearly 2% while the homes sold in the other areas increased by more than 10% and even as high as nearly 16%…in one year!

You could easily make an argument that one year doesn’t make a difference and perhaps this was because of the very public turmoil that was happening in Stonecrest, but, at the same time, it’s a compelling argument that South DeKalb is doing just fine without becoming a new city and that your property value will best be preserved by not incorporating into the City of DeKalb.

Previous articles regarding City of DeKalb/Greenhaven

South DeKalb Says No to Kathryn Rice and City of DeKalb

Police remove Greenhaven’s Kathryn Rice from State Capitol