See the Sacramento neighborhoods with the biggest jumps in real estate prices

Oak Park and East Sacramento aren’t considered neighborhoods with a lot in common. It may be time to rethink that.

A review of post-recession real estate values in select Sacramento neighborhoods shows those two inner-city neighborhoods saw the biggest recent rise in home prices – Oak Park in percentage increase, East Sacramento in pure dollars.

Both are old-school, classic communities that are experiencing a similar surge in investments, including restaurants, modern housing projects and younger residents. Oak Park as well has landed a handful of cutting-edge businesses aimed at young professionals.

The median home sales price in Oak Park vaulted a huge 320 percent between 2012 and 2019, the biggest jump among the dozen metro-area neighborhoods in a review conducted this week by Ryan Lundquist, a real estate data analyst, appraiser and author of the Sacramento Appraisal Blog.

Lundquist said Oak Park’s proximity to downtown jobs and its still-low prices after the recession are key factors in the price surge.

When the recession was at its depths, the median Oak Park house sale price dropped to $62,000 amid repossessions and discount bank sales. This year, it hit $260,000. In the interim, the neighborhood has seen infill residential development, including apartments and town homes bordering Broadway, the area’s main street. City officials say they plan to invest several million dollars in remaking Broadway through Oak Park into a more pedestrian-friendly downtown-style street.

Changes have not come without controversy. Oak Park has been the focal point of a gentrification debate, with some arguing increased property values from new investments will push lower-income residents out.

Lundquist’s neighborhood list is a sampling. He said his goal was to review price changes in a variety of neighborhood types and a few cities to compare to Oak Park, the neighborhood arguably seeing the most change in the region in the last half-dozen years.

“One takeaway is there is substantial (house price) change everywhere,” Lundquist said.

Overall, the county has seen a 117 percent increase in the median price of a house since the recession ended in 2012. Those prices remain lower, however, adjusted for inflation than they were during the boom real estate years in the mid-2000s.

Notably, the review found that other lower-cost neighborhoods, also hard hit by foreclosures a decade ago, experienced fast-rising median home values, including in order of percentage price increase: Del Paso Heights, Lemon Hill, North Highlands and Meadowview.

Median home prices nearly tripled in those neighborhoods between 2012 and 2019, an indicator that the region’s property value increases after the recession included both wealthy and less wealthy areas.

Notably, Del Paso Heights and Oak Park had roughly similar median prices in 2012, but Oak Park has gained a 10 percent home value edge since then, Lundquist notes. That difference may be due to Oak Park’s proximity to downtown jobs as well as a recent focus on infill housing construction near downtown.

In pure dollar terms, the strongest growing neighborhoods were also the ones where home prices were highest at the end of the recession – East Sacramento, Land Park, Folsom and the midtown/downtown area. The median home value in East Sacramento grew from $342,000 to $625,000, an 82 percent increase, edging it ahead of Land Park.

Sacramento Bee reporter Phillip Reese contributed to this report.