OwnAmerica CEO Gregory Rand has identified the top 25 residential real estate investment markets using the firm’s proprietary methodology, based on time-tested metrics and local expertise on the ground in each community. Selection of winning investment markets is driven by a dynamic algorithm based on four distinct informational categories.
Housing demand fundamentals:
Population growth, migration patterns, employment strength, cost of living, quality of life, future rental demand and responsible governance. Markets emerge as winners in this category based on evidence that people are drawn to the market for reasons that are demonstrable and sustainable for the long term. Population growth = housing demand, which supports strength in both rents and values.
Home price performance:
Markets are chosen not for their near-term appreciation or perceived discount, but for their predictability based on how they performed over the past fifteen years or longer. This longer-term time table was chosen to include three key periods of time:
1. Late 1990s: uneventful period where a trend line can be established under calm conditions;
2. 2000s: volatile “stress test” period the housing bubble and correction;
3. The early stages of the recovery that have taken place since 2010.
