U.C. Berkeley will emerge as the champion of the real estate version of the 2016 March Madness® college basketball tournament, according to the realtor.com® and Vivid Seats housing market bracket released this week, which narrowed the final four field to – U.C. Berkeley, Iowa State, the University of Texas and the University of Michigan.
The collaborative effort leveraged Vivid Seats’ – a ticket marketplace for live sports, concert, and theater events – sales information to identify the ZIP code representing the largest number of ticket sales for each team. Realtor.com® then made its picks using the hotness of each ZIP code’s housing market as measured by speed of inventory movement and realtor.com® page views between November 2015 and February 2016.
To view Realtor.com®’s real estate version of March Madness infographic, click here.
Based on the analysis, U.C. Berkeley, which has the most ticket-buying fans in 94526 (Danville, Calif.), wins the tournament hands down thanks to its California Bay Area real estate dynamics. Other ZIP codes that made it to the real estate version of the Final Four® include Iowa State’s most popular ticket market 50010 (Ames, Iowa); the University of Texas’s 78613 (Cedar Park, Texas); and the University of Michigan’s 48103 (Ann Arbor, Mich.).
“Our analysis shows that ZIP codes with the highest number of college basketball ticket sales are also ballers when it comes to real estate,” says Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for realtor.com®. “But you can only have one winner in The Big Dance®, and Danville’s strong housing market, strong economy and favorable demographics helped it take down the net this year.”
When it comes to residential listings, Danville is hot on and off the court receiving 62 percent more listing views than its surrounding San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, Calif. Metro, which is the hottest market in the country. Its strong housing game is primarily driven by robust median household income of almost $120,000 and low unemployment associated with being in one of the strongest job markets in the country. Not to mention that homes in this market have some serious hops – selling 41 days more quickly than the typical listing in the US. While no one could touch Danville, the other markets that made it to the real estate version of the Final Four® — Ames (50010); Cedar Park (78613) and Ann Arbor (48103) — also brought the housing heat to the tournament with properties moving 40, 41, and 18 days more quickly than the US median age.
“The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is an exciting time to be a fan in any location, and the teams and fans who are a part of this year’s tournament have many reasons to celebrate. We were happy to work with realtor.com® this year to give them yet another reason to celebrate: bragging rights to the hottest locations among zip codes that buy the most tickets,” adds Vivid Seats.
The research showed the ZIP codes that purchase the most college basketball tickets per team are typically more affluent suburbs located in close proximity to the college or university. But you won’t find a lot of college students in these specific towns; all 68 teams included in the bracket not only have hotter than usual housing markets, their share of households making more than $100,000 is 30 percent higher than their surrounding metro and their unemployment rates are 16 percent lower.
For more information, visit www.realtor.com.
