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Comment by fusslo | Hacker News Reader

out of curiosity I overlaid this map with the zillow map of my city. It seems to be a good predictor for number of homes for sale

I suppose that shouldn't be surprising, but it was to me

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What information correlates to an increase in number of homes for sale?

Many US cities have high rates of homeownership by non-white families who bought during/after White Flight. This means that there are a lot of minority homeowners who have significant real estate equity (often inherited) but lack other assets. Now the trend is reversing and white people are moving back into city centers, often renting/buying in working-class neighborhoods that had mainly been populated by minority groups since the ‘60s (aka gentrification). Sellers want to convert real estate into cash, and buyers want relatively cheap urban real estate and have cash. So the highest turnover is going to be in majority-minority areas.

(Another factor is rezoning/redevelopment, which is also putting pressure on people in some more heavily minority neighborhoods to sell.)

All of this also explains why property tax reform is such a thorny issue in cities like New York.

Where are the minority owners moving to? Rentals?

People who bought during white flight are at the end of their lifetime about now. Often the inheritors are not residents

Also this real estate is usually cheap and the inheritors often want to offload it because it has spent the last few decades inhabited by an elderly person living on social security and is in need of updates and repairs.

Downsizing (but still owning), rentals, the suburbs, Texas, Atlanta, or nowhere, if the parents pass away and the kids don't want the house.

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