In its Q1 2025 report, ATTOM examined eligible low-income Opportunity Zones that Congress had designated for economic revitalization under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In this analysis, ATTOM examined 3,558 U.S. zones that had at least five home sales in Q1 of 2025 and had enough data to evaluate.
According to the study, some 48% of Opportunity Zones nationwide with sufficient data to measure saw an increase in median single-family house and condo prices between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. This occurred as the median price throughout the country stayed constant. During an era when the average national price increased by 8%, medians increased annually in 59% of Opportunity Zones.
“Home-value patterns inside Opportunity Zones remain pretty much in lock-step with the rest of the country, just as we’ve seen ever since we started looking at this niche of the market. From one to another, those very local markets remain volatile, with troubling signs in the very lowest-priced areas. But the big picture shows remarkable, and mostly positive, consistency,” said Rob Barber, CEO for ATTOM. “This likely reflects the ongoing short supply of homes for sale across the country and rising prices, which pushes marginal buyers to roll the dice on locations with varying levels of economic distress.”
U.S. Highlights — Q1 2025 Report
- In over half of the Opportunity Zones examined, median prices increased by more than 10% each year as the U.S. housing market boom entered its 14th year.
- In 1,491 (48%) of the Opportunity Zones with enough data to examine, median prices for single-family homes and condos rose from Q4 of 2024 to Q1 of 2025, while remaining unchanged or declining in 52% of the Opportunity Zones.
- In 1,762 (59%) of those zones, medians, which are measured annually, stayed higher from the first quarter of 2024 to the same period this year. The research includes 3,558 Opportunity Zones, of which 3,120 had sufficient data to produce useful median-price comparisons between Q1 of 2024 and Q1 of 2025, and 3,004 had sufficient data to compare Q1 of 2024 with Q1 of 2025.
- The quarterly and annual trends in Opportunity Zones were consistent with trends elsewhere: median prices increased by 48 and 59%, respectively, in the same percentage of census tracts outside of Opportunity Zones.
- In 42 percent of Opportunity Zones, average values increased by more than 10% per year, while in 37% of areas outside the zones, this was not the case.
- In just 47% of Opportunity Zones, where homes typically sold for less than $125,000 in Q1 of 2025, median prices increased annually, which is a persistent warning sign of problems.
- Larger shares of the Opportunity Zone tracts with the lowest prices were still found in the Midwest in the first quarter of 2025. The Midwest had the highest median home values (61%), followed by the Northeast (42%), the South (39%), and the West (6%).
Home Value Trends & Economic Patters — U.S.
A long-term pattern of property values within Opportunity Zones closely following broader national price fluctuations for at least the previous four years was extended by those trends in and around low-income communities where the federal government provides tax benefits to encourage “economic rebirth.” That has persisted whether there have been modest, moderate, or significant advances in the housing market.
The first-quarter patterns were mixed, with typical values rising significantly more frequently in higher-priced zones than in the absolute lowest-priced neighborhoods, even while prices in most Opportunity Zone regions continued to grow year-over-year. The U.S. housing market’s very bottom continued to exhibit more notable weakness, indicating that those regions are benefiting the least from growing property values and may be more at risk if the overall market upswing pauses.
However, the most recent trends indicate that, in comparison to other markets across the country, some of the most troubled areas are exhibiting economic strength—or at least limited deterioration. Throughout Q1 of 2025, Opportunity Zones continued to experience even higher price trends than the national average by a number of significant metrics.
In all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories, census tracts in or next to low-income communities that satisfy specific requirements for redevelopment are designated as Opportunity Zones under the Tax Act legislation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, census tracts are regions having 1,200–8,000 inhabitants, with an average of roughly 4,000.
Among states that had at least 25 Opportunity Zones with enough data to analyze during Q1 of 2025, the largest portions of zones where median prices increased annually were in:
- Indiana (medians up from Q1 of 2024 to Q1 of 2025 in 75% of zones)
- New York (72%)
- Missouri (70%)
- Colorado (69%)
- New Jersey (65%)
States where prices were up annually in the smallest portion of zones included:
- Nevada (median prices up in 44% of zones)
- Washington (49%)
- Florida (49%)
- Iowa (52%)
- Tennessee (52%)
In the first quarter of 2025, 1,097 (31%) of the 3,558 zones in the report had median prices below $150,000. That represented a decrease from 5 years ago, when 57% of zones had adequate data, and from 34% a year earlier. In the first quarter of this year, the medians for another 556 zones (16%) ranged from $150,000 to $199,999. Some 20% of Opportunity Zones had median values in Q1 of 2025 that were higher than the national median of $355,000, while 24% had median values ranging from $200,000 to $299,999.
“The home-buyer money flowing into these communities shows enduring potential for them to turn around, providing solid foundations for investors looking to use the Opportunity Zone incentives,” Barber said.
In the early months of 2025, average property values in large areas of Opportunity Zones remained significantly lower than those in the majority of the country, despite differing degrees of economic hardship. In 80 percent of the zones with sufficient data, the median first-quarter prices were less than the median of $355,000 in the U.S. That was roughly the same amount as it has been since 2020. Additionally, in nearly half of the zones, median prices stayed below $200,000.
Significant price volatility persisted within Opportunity Zones as well, with median prices in almost three-quarters of those areas either declining or rising by at least 5% between late 2023 and early 2024. Once more, that probably represented the low volume of sales in numerous zones.
Overall, however, the most recent Opportunity Zone trends still closely followed the national home price trajectory in the first several months of 2025.
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