Portland makes #1 on Zillow's "Hottest Neighborhoods"

Click and drag until you can buy

Zillow recently did a study on which neighborhoods were getting the most attention on their website.  Based on web page views and more specifically the real estate home searches for these neighborhoods.  The study also considered the ratio of homes for sale vs the search hits, to make sure the "hottest" wasn't simply hot by means of largely populous and home inventory saturation.

And a top 10 list was formed placing one of Portland's neighborhoods at Number 1.  Portland also finds itself on the list again at Number 3 and 9.

What zillow found more interesting in this study was average price point for the neighborhoods that were in the top 10 vs average price point for the Metro that they were located in.  These top 10 nighborhoods were signifigantly higher than its local average.  At many times, double.  Look at this link for a breakdown of this interesting value differential.  Click for Inman article.

And now your top 10:

1. Hillside, Portland, otherwise known as Northwest Hills including Historic Catlin Gable.
2. Laurelhurst, Seattle, (no, not the Portland one)
3. Southwest Hills, Portland.  (Vista Hill, Kings Heights, Lair Hill, Council Crest, etc.)
4. Palma Ceia, Tampa, Fla
5. Montlake, Seattle
6. Country Club, Denver, Co.
7. Tuxedo Park, Atlanta,Ga (near Buckhead)
8. Chastain Park, Atlanta, Ga
9. Sunnyside, Portland. (not Clackamas, rather Belmont, Hawthorne, Clinton, Tabor, etc..)
10. Mission Valley, Freemont, CA.  (first CA appearance is at #10)

Thanks for the interesting data Zillow.  We can always count on you for that.  What is Zillow trying to tell us with this list?  That these are the most desired places to live in the US?  I think it needs to have a disclaimer...  "If money were no option"  Clearly, by their own admission that the prices in the most desirable areas are near 2x that of the median for the metropolitan area that they are in.

There is a not-to-old of a phrase that buyer's used to live by, "Drive until you can buy".  Meaning, start with your dream location.  If you can't afford it, keep driving until you can afford the next closest location to your dream home.  With the addition of the internet to home buyers, the phrase can still be adapted.  I'd change it to, "Click and drag until you can buy"