Home sales in six Forsyth County residential markets included in U.S. Treasury-certified “opportunity zones” continue to produce mixed results, according to a third-quarter report released by Attom Data Solutions.
Opportunity zones, launched in May 2018, are economically-distressed census tracts qualified to receive private investments.
The program was created by Congress and is designed to connect those tracts with investors, offering tax credits and other incentives.
All but one of the 11 Forsyth tracts are in the central part of Winston-Salem. They account for more than 25,000 residents. They are among 47 in the Triad and 252 statewide.
The Forsyth tracts reviewed by Attom for the third quarter are:
Tract 1 in the central business district. The average sales price was $413,750, compared with $268,000 in the second quarter and $190,000 a year ago.
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Tract 3.02 in the Kimberly Park neighborhood. The average sales price was $71,000, compared with $81,000 in the second quarter and $75,000 a year ago.
Tract 14, which contains Whitaker Park, a 1.7-million-square-foot former R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. plant. The average home sale price was $107,500, compared with $150,000 in the second quarter and a year ago.
The campus is part of a high-profile renovation project being undertaken by Whitaker Park Development Authority Inc. and Cavalier Winston Development, an affiliate of Frye Properties of Norfolk, Va.
Tract 16.02, Smith Reynolds Airport and neighborhoods south of the airport. The average home sale price was $62,500, compared with $50,000 in the second quarter. There was no sales during the third quarter of 2022.
Tract 17, which contains Lakeside Villas multifamily housing development. The average home sale price when the opportunity zone program began was $143,000. It has since fluctuated from a low of $55,000 in the third quarter of 2020 to $214,000 in the third quarter of 2022. It was $167,000 in the second quarter and $210,000 a year ago.
Tract 33.13, which contains Horneytown Road. The average home sale price was $235,000, compared with $277,500 in the second quarter and $296,500 a year ago.
Not reviewed for the third quarter were: Tract 2 in the central business district; Tract 3.01 in the Boston-Thurmond neighborhood; Tract 7 contains Innovation Quarter in downtown Winston-Salem; Tract 8.01, which encompasses Winston-Salem State University, the UNC School of the Arts and Happy Hill neighborhood; and Tract 8.02 covers the Atkins Community Development Corp.
Winston-Salem city officials consider opportunity zones as another “tool in the economic and community development toolbox that can be used to help spur private development and redevelopment in some of the areas in our community that have not seen the growth.”
There are 12 tracts in Guilford County, along with four in Alamance, three each in Randolph, Rockingham, Surry and Wilkes, two in Davidson and one each in Alleghany, Ashe, Davie, Stokes, Watauga and Yadkin.
The certified “opportunity zones” list for North Carolina has at least one low-income census tract in each of the state’s 100 counties.
