We all know the old adage: Location, location, location.
It’s a real estate mantra that actually makes sense and one everyone should live by if they want their property value to rise.
After all, you can’t move your house (in most cases), and decorating a home to perfection in the middle of nowhere will only get you so far.
So if you’re hunting for a house, it’s important to find a good location first. Forget about the quartz countertops or the Viking range. You can put those in later.
Find a home in a good school district, in a nice neighborhood with lots of pride of ownership and you should be fine.
Oh, and make sure there’s a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods nearby. A Ralphs/Kroger or Vons/Safeway just won’t do…nor will Albertsons.
Homes Worth Double When Located by These Grocers
- Homes adjacent to certain grocery stores
- Including trendy Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s
- Greatly outperform other properties
- If located within a mile of either, they’re worth more than double the median home
Yup, just like Starbucks, you’ll want your next home purchase to be in close proximity to one of these trendy grocery stores.
Why? Well, Zillow discovered that homes near these two grocers tend to greatly outperform homes that aren’t located nearby.
All the details can be found in the book Zillow Talk, but they provided several tidbits for us to chew on based on analysis from 1997 to 2014.
The median home within a mile of a future Whole Foods actually appreciates slower than other homes in the same city, but once the store opens it’s a different story.
Even in the months before the store opens, the trend reverses so these homes wind up appreciating faster than other area homes.
So perhaps trying to time that home purchase with the grand opening of a Whole Foods could pay dividends. Just don’t spend all your gains at Whole Foods…
For Trader Joe’s, it appears to be an even better deal (they also tend to have much lower prices than Whole Foods).
Zillow found that homes near future Trader Joe’s locations appreciated at the same rate of those in the same city but not nearby the food chain.
Two years after a TJ’s opened, the median home within a mile of one of the grocer’s stores appreciated a staggering 10% more than homes in the city overall during the prior year.
As of the end of 2014, homes within a mile of either of these stores were worth more than double the median home in the country.
Follow Their Lead
- It comes down to the scouting report
- Both companies have employees specifically hired
- To find up and coming spots for their stores
- Piggyback off their research and you could see big gains too!
In other words, both Whole Food and Trader Joe’s seem to have very good scouts in terms of choosing a winning location for their stores.
They’re basically doing the work for you if you’re unsure of where to move, or have the flexibility to choose from a variety of locations within a certain city.
This is similar to the Starbucks phenomenon, where homes appreciated faster when they were located within a quarter mile of the coffee chain.
So to get this straight, if you find a home next to the eventual location of a Starbucks, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s, buy, buy, buy!!
Just kidding. But it’s certainly worth some consideration if you’re home shopping. If you can find a home next to these types of businesses that’s also in a good school district, and perhaps also on a good street name (yes, that matters too), you could make a fortune.
It’d be nice to know which businesses have the opposite effect, though it’s probably fairly obvious.
Read more: 11 home buying tips you can use right now!