Mapping Home Values in Hyattsville

A few weeks back, Hyattsville area realtor Ann Barrett distributed a trove of data to local residents on the HOPE Listserv on 2012's home sales in Hyattsville.

The data comes from a Metropolitan Region Information System Matrix real estate report, which tracks home sales in the Washington, DC region. Last year, the reports detail 123 home sales in the city. 

Since then, I've embarked upon a small pet project analyzing the data. Plotting the locations of the home sales on a map, one can see where the hot and cool spots of the city's residential real estate market are. Hovering your mouse over the colored areas of the map reveals the closing sale price value for nearby homes.

A quick glance at the map reveals a situation which is probably not too surprising for anyone who's familiar with Hyattsville's socio-economic geography. Homes in Hyattsville's central neighborhoods between Queens Chapel Road and Route 1 tend to sell for more than homes in the city's eastern-and-westernmost neighborhoods. 

Hyattsville's least valuable neighborhood is an area with a roughly four block radius centered around Lancer Drive and 31st Avenue in West Hyattsville. Homes sold in this neighborhood were among the least valuable Hyattsville, including a $70,000 home sold at 5615 30th Avenue, the cheapest house sold in the city last year. This area's low average housing value is due largely to a high rate of foreclosures. This area also has significant overlap with hotspots in burglaries and crimes against persons detailed on a previous Hyattsville Patch map. 

The city's most expensive home sold in the College Heights neighborhood, at 7114 Claymore Avenue. The 2,000 square foot, five level, four bedroom, three-and-a-half bath brick split level sold for $459,900 in June of last year. 

So, how much does a home in Hyattsville typically cost? 

Well, the average closing price on a home sold in Hyattsville last year was $199,133. But averages, easily influenced by outliers in the city's relatively small sample of residential real estate values, are not a rigorous statistic. This effect was rather pronounced in the data, which revealed a $55,680 average deviation from the mean closing prices of houses sold last year.

A better way of examining what a house typically costs in Hyattsville can be found by calculating the mode value of home closing prices, which represents the price most often paid for a home. The mode closing price in Hyattsville came in at $175,000.