Tacony Is Flipping Its Way to Growth, According to New Study

Photo credit: Ashley Hahn

Earlier this week, the Tacony Community Development Corporation posted the results of a study conducted by James Onofrio who took a look at housing sales data in the neighborhood between August 2012 and July 2015. Onofrio, who used Zillow to gather the data, concludes that investment and residential redevelopment projects are among the factors spurring growth in the neighborhood, which was recently named on the list of “Great Neighborhoods” by the American Planning Association, Pennsylvania Chapter.

Here are three takeaways from the study, which you can read in full here. (Do it. There are charts!)

The priciest homes are between Tyson and Princeton Avenues:

Clustered in an area between these two streets, Tacony’s most expensive homes consist of twins and single houses, writes Onofrio. Unsurprisingly, These residences are in the way of having roomy yards, off-street parking, and “greater tree cover.”

Meanwhile, properties with the highest home values per square foot were located adjacent to Tacony’s Vogt Park in the center of the neighborhood, “again, on relatively tree-lined streets.” In addition to the park, these properties had the added benefit of sitting between the Frankford and Torresdale Avenue commercial corridors and bus routes.

Flips have increased:

In this study, a “flip” was identified as a remodeled and re-sold home “sold twice in 24 months with a >50% change in sale price.” Tacony has seen a blip in its flip inventory, with up to sixty occurring within the last thirty-six months. Moreover, while flips may understandably evoke images of properties acquired from the clutches of foreclosure, the study found that only twenty-seven of the sixty flipped homes had been foreclosed or part of a sheriff’s sale.

Onofrio goes on to say that flips in Tacony are unlikely to significantly raise property taxes or “push anyone out in the near future.” After all, the median sale price among the properties post-renovation was $114,000. “The data doesn’t show signs of a speculative market, where contractors renovate homes and sell them to people who really can’t afford them.” (Emphasis ours.)

Flips completed within the study time period were found to have “added about $3.8 million in real estate value neighborhood-wide.”

It remains affordable (and un-blighted):

Onofrio also reports that a look at sales data revealed Tacony’s low cost of housing: the median price of the 846 homes sold since August 2012 was “about $85,000,” almost half of the citywide average of $158,000,  according to Zillow. On top of that, Tacony continues to show blight-free signs, with barely any vacant lots or unsecured or dilapidated houses cropping up around the neighborhood.

Additionally, of the “636 properties with multiple sale information, 277 of these sales were from “long-term occupants,” otherwise known as owners who had lived in a given property for a decade or more and who had never gone through a foreclosure. “This group on average experienced an annual growth in housing value of 3 percent,” writes Donofrio. “These are the kind of residents that contribute to neighborhood stability.”

This is, of course, but a snippet of Onofrio’s findings. If you haven’t already, read the report in full (charts and all) by clicking on the link below.

• Residential Investment in Tacony Grows: Redevelopment Projects Provide Remodeled Homes to New Homebuyers [Historic Tacony Revitalization Project]