Burgeoning Creative Communities in Affordable Areas Represent Real Estate Investment Opportunity
As any real estate agent will tell you, there are few things more important to determining the value of a property than its location. A dilapidated home in San Francisco will likely be priced at a rate commensurate to a 2,500-square foot home in another location, so real estate investors have long been trying to predict the areas that are poised for a sudden increase in popularity. Two areas in particular, Silicon Valley and Brooklyn, have experienced tremendous increases in value over the last few years, and buyers who got in before the rapid growth have, in many cases, tripled and quadrupled their initial investments.
In my recently released travel guide (“Top 12 Places to Visit in Texas,” by Jody Rookstool), I noticed several trends similar to those occurring in both Brooklyn and Silicon Valley. While Silicon Valley’s growth is tied to technological innovation, Brooklyn’s is tied to an influx of artists. Being able to work in either industry requires creativity and freedom from significant housing costs, so these creative-minded individuals flocked to affordable areas close to major cultural centers (San Francisco and Manhattan) and unintentionally created a cultural center of their own.
Once Silicon Valley and Brooklyn became known as areas hosting and encouraging widespread creativity and innovation, other similarly minded individuals began to come to the area as well, eventually leading to a lack of supply to meet the demand. These creative communities are now loaded with valuable properties, so investors should try to find communities in the early stages of growth to achieve a sizable return on investment.
