Since the housing boom, bust, and recovery that came along with the Great Recession, the difference in home values between South and North DeKalb County has grown into a considerable chasm. A house in South DeKalb, that is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a North DeKalb home, may only sell for half of its Northern counterpart. And, as The Washington Post reports, people are looking at race as the reason such a large gap exists.
While South DeKalb is home to many neighborhoods with a predominantly black population, North DeKalb has many zip codes with a low black population and, according to a Washington Post analysis, the higher a zip code's share of black residents in the Atlanta region, the worse its housing values have fared over the past housing cycle. In just about every zip code that has a population that is at least 40 percent black home values are down.
Home values are still 25 percent lower than what they were in 2004 in some South DeKalb zip codes. Meanwhile, in mostly white neighborhoods to the north in the very same county, home values are thriving.
This story is not unique, either. Across the largest 300 metro areas in the United States, homes in 40 percent of zip codes where blacks are the largest population are worth less than they were in 2004. Across Atlanta, however, 90 percent of largely black zip codes have home values below where they were 12 years ago.
To read the full story and view the accompanying infographics, charts, and graphs, follow the link below.
