The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index® rose 3.3% year-over-year in October (non-seasonally adjusted), up from 3.2% in September. Annual growth was also up from September in the smaller 10-city index (to 1.7%, from 1.5%) and in the 20-city index (to 2.2%, from 2.1%).
Phoenix (+5.8%), Tampa (+4.9%) and Charlotte (+4.8%) reported the highest year-over-year gains among markets in the 20-city index.
2019 was a year of transition in housing, marked by a significant and consistent slowdown in home price appreciation. But as the year draws to a close, signs suggest the market has achieved a soft landing and may even be primed for a reacceleration.
The national Case-Shiller Home Price Index rose 3.3% year-over-year in October. The smaller 10- and 20-city composite indices grew more slowly, at 1.7% and 2.2% year-over-year, respectively. On a monthly (seasonally adjusted) basis, the 10-city index rose by 0.4% in October from September, and the 20-city index was also up 0.4% over the same period.
Index
Zillow Forecast, Released 11/26/19
Actual Case-Shiller Indices,
Released 12/31/19
Historical Median Absolute Error*
10-City Composite,
Month-Over-Month (SA)
0.2%
0.4%
0.2%
10-City Composite,
Year-Over-Year (NSA)
1.5%
1.7%
0.2%
20-City Composite,
Month-Over-Month (SA)
0.2%
0.4%
0.2%
20-City Composite,
Year-Over-Year (NSA)
2.1%
2.2%
0.1%
U.S. National
Month-Over-Month (SA)
0.3%
0.5%
0.1%
U.S. National
Year-Over-Year (NSA)
3.2%
3.3%
0.1%
*Calculation of Median Absolute Errors are based on Zillow’s forecasts dating to 2011. The national Case-Shiller forecasts began in 2014.
Despite recent upticks, mortgage rates remain nearly a full percentage point below where they were this time last year. Teamed with a resilient job market, low mortgage rates have helped boost homebuyer demand, as seen in steadily increasing home sales volume in recent months. In theory, more modest home price growth should also push more sellers to enter the market in order to capitalize on their strong equity gains from the past few years, but thus far that has not been the case. An extreme shortage of for-sale listings, particularly at lower price points, remains a concern and may ultimately result in a sharper reacceleration in home prices than expected.
In the meantime, annual growth in October as reported by Case-Shiller is expected to accelerate in all three major indices. S&P Dow Jones Indices is expected to release data for the November S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices on Tuesday, Jan. 28.
Index
Actual October
Case-Shiller Change
Zillow’s Forecast for the Case-Shiller November Indices
10-City Composite,
Month-Over-Month (SA)
0.4%
0.2%
10-City Composite,
Year-Over-Year (NSA)
1.7%
2%
20-City Composite,
Month-Over-Month (SA)
0.4%
0.3%
20-City Composite,
Year-Over-Year (NSA)
2.2%
2.5%
U.S. National
Month-Over-Month (SA)
0.5%
0.3%
U.S. National
Year-Over-Year (NSA)
3.3%
3.5%
Note: Case-Shiller and Case-Shiller Index are registered trademarks of CoreLogic Solutions, LLC. The statements herein are not endorsed by or provided in association or connection with CoreLogic, LLC.
Everyone loves to discover a real bargain, whether it’s a discounted lunch special, a mysteriously cheap laptop, or a home. Especially a home! The sad truth: While we all tend to obsess over the nation’s famously desirable, famously overpriced markets—San Fransisco and New York and Denver, oh my—they don’t exactly offer a lot of unexpectedly affordable housing options. And along with the stratosphere-scraping prices comes crazed competition among buyers. Who needs the drama?
Don’t despair! None of this means you have to put your homeownership dreams on hold. In fact, there are places where you can land your ideal home for a low price, where homes don’t go off the market in a matter of minutes, and where you can still find plenty of fun things to do. But they just might not be the first places you’d think of.
That’s why our trusty data team members put on their headlamps and most durable duds and started digging, working to uncover the most overlooked housing markets—the hidden places where buyers can score a deal on a home and land a good job, all without dying of boredom. After all, seeking out a mellower market can save your sanity and open up options.
“In a really hot housing market you might have to buy a home quickly, make an offer that’s more competitive with a larger down payment, or waive contingencies you might prefer to keep,” says Danielle Hale, chief economist of realtor.com. “It’s less likely you might have to make those concessions as a buyer in a colder market.”
To figure out where buyers can get into the housing market without raising their cortisol levels (too much), realtor.com’s team of treasure hunters looked at the metro areas with the following:
The longest days on the market
Median home prices below the national median of $310,000
Unemployment rates lower than the national rate of 3.6%
A high number of restaurants and bars listed on Yelp
We limited the list to just one metro per state and ranked them in order of longest days on the market.
“Even though properties are sitting on the market in many of these areas, values are still increasing,” Hale says.
So let’s take a stress-free ride across the country, and check ’em out.
Median home list price: $299,950 Median days on market: 87
Three-bedroom home in Cape Coral, FL
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Set on the Gulf of Mexico in serene Southwest Florida, Cape Coral boasts 400 miles of canals where homeowners can tie up a boat behind their own home and fish from their own dock. Those beautiful inland waterways were overtaken with toxic foul-smelling, blue-green algae blooms after Hurricane Irma swept the area in 2017, which took its toll on home prices for a couple of years.
But the Army Corps of Engineers has been testing water filtration systems to collect and remove those sorts of deadly algae blooms in the future—and, as a result, buyers have been slowly creeping back into town to pick up deals.
“We haven’t had any problems this year, and my phone has been ringing off the hook,” says Mike Lombardo, broker with Old Glory Realty.
For less than $300,000, it’s possible to score a home with Gulf access, like this three-bedroom, two-bathroom place—as well as newly remodeled places with pools, higher square footage, and waterfront views for right around the same price.
Median home list price: $187,725 Median days on market: 76.25
New four-bedroom home in El Paso, TX
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El Paso made headlines when it was shaken by a mass shooting in August, and the emotional impact is still being felt. But by all economic measures, things have been looking up in recent years for the Texas border town that sits right at the crux of Las Cruces, Ciudad Juarez, and Chihuahua City.
The population is growing fast, recently hitting 800,000. The Mexican peso has gained strength on the U.S. dollar, helping the borderland economy hit $13 billion in commercial activity. And home values are creeping up—11% over last year, according to recent realtor.com data.
“When I moved here five years ago, it was a very different city from what is now,” says Alex Cordova, real estate agent with Alexander Cordova Luxury Real Estate. “It’s a huge, booming city right now.”
The military town has also been transforming into a bigger college town with a broadened research program at the University of Texas at El Paso. To serve all the young residents, the city boasts more than 1,000 restaurants and bars along with 35 museums.
In the desirable neighborhood of Castner Heights, buyers can get three-bedroom homes, in a variety of styles—from Colonial and Pueblo Revival to ranch—for $175,000 (or less). Or you can land a brand-new, four-bedroom home for just $229,900.
Median home list price: $294,950 Median days on market: 74.5
Historic restored three-bedroom home in Albany, NY
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Outdoor enthusiasts, rejoice! Along with its whopping 1,331 restaurants and bars, 46 museums, and a thriving indie music and arts scene, come wintertime Albany offers more sledding, ice skating, snowmobiling, and tubing per capita than just about any other metro in the U.S. Still, Albany still has plenty of deals on homes—you can get into a three-bedroom restored historic home in the desirable Pine Hills neighborhood for $189,000.
“You can get a really nice house in the city within walking distance to restaurants and bars,” says Anthony Gucciardo, broker at Gucciardo Real Estate Group.
While the state capital and college town has started marketing itself as a tech hub—gaining some good-paying biotech, engineering, and pharmaceutical gigs—the city has had its share of economic struggles over the past few decades. It has kept homeownership rates low: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 37.2% of all housing units are owner-occupied.
But a never-ending supply of college students searching for housing also makes Albany a prime opportunity for potential buyers who want an investment property and need a strong pool of renters.
A lot of empty nesters and first-time buyers pick up deals in coveted neighborhoods like the aforementioned Pine Hills and Buckingham Pond, a vibrant, walkable area with tons of eateries.
Median home list price: $224,285.5 Median days on market: 73.5
Four-bedroom home in Augusta, GA
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Augusta might be most famous for the Masters golf tournament—and its legendary pimento cheese sandwich—but it has way more to offer than an annual sporting event. The historic city founded in 1736, on the beautiful banks of the Savannah River, is just two hours from Atlanta and two hours from the coast.
Over the past couple of years, the military town has diversified its economy with medical and manufacturing jobs, like E-Z-Go golf carts, and opened a U.S. Army Cyber School in Fort Gordon. The town’s unemployment rate has dropped substantially, from 5.8% (a couple of points higher than the national average) in 2016 to 3.3%.
But that’s not all—Augusta boasts more than 700 restaurants, 14 museums, and a wide range of homes that cost a fraction of the price of other Georgia metros. Buyers can score a charming four-bedroom Colonial, just 10 minutes from the city’s famed 18 holes, for just shy of $250,000.
Median home list price: $292,550 Median days on market: 72
Three-bedroom in Des Moines, IA
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Des Moines, quite simply, is thriving. The city’s population has increased 6.2% since 2010, drawing a plethora of young professionals who come for jobs in the large financial, insurance, and publishing sectors, with offices for Wells Fargo, Nationwide, and Meredith Publishing.
And those white-collar workers are staying for the amenities. Des Moines boasts 1,000-plus restaurants, an annual arts festival, and regular concerts on the river that feature bands such as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Foster the People.
“In the last 10 years, the city’s culture has shifted to very artsy,” says Tim Scheib, a Realtor® with Re/Max Precision.
Because of the thriving economy (the unemployment rate is just 2.5%), developers have been working on a wide array of housing projects for every level of the market. For instance, to the west of the city, a project called Kettlestone is currently underway. The 1,500-acre, mixed-use development features a range of residential housing, restaurants, and offices connected by trails, parks, and ponds. In this community you can score a three-bedroom home for under $300,000.
“These kinds of areas are attracting a lot of families and young couples preparing for a family,” Scheib says.
Those who want to be in the heart of the city—and care less about space—can find industrial-style, one-bedroom condos starting around $145,000.
Median home list price: $247,446 Median days on market: 70.5
Four-bedroom in Baton Rouge, LA
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Even though Baton Rouge has seen an influx of restaurants and bars (it has more than 1,100 listed on Yelp) in its walkable downtown, the high-in-crime state capital has been losing population. But as many city dwellers have decamped for the suburbs, the larger metro’s overall population is up 3.6%.
The first-time buyers and young families moving to burbs can get a large four-bedroom, French-inspired home for $275,000, smack dab in the middle of the desirable Ascenscion Parish school district, just minutes away from the city
These areas are full of historic buildings and Spanish moss–covered oak trees as well as lots of parks and waterways. And, since it is Louisiana, there’s excellent Cajun- and Creole-style fare.
While home values have increased about 4% from last year, the market is still better for buyers than it was a couple of years ago. Catastrophic flooding in 2016 decreased the area’s housing stock, causing home prices to surge as a result.
“There was a huge demand for housing with multiple offers taking place per listing,” says David McKey, broker with Coldwell Banker One. “We’re back to a more normal market now.”
Median home list Price: $239,950 Median days on market: 64
Columbia, SC home
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South Carolina’s state capital might not get the attention of its darling coastal sister, Charleston, but it still has plenty of respectable amenities—and its housing is far more affordable. Charleston’s median list price of $325,000 is nearly $100,000 higher than Columbia’s.
Columbia boasts a solid mix of global companies like BlueCross BlueShield, students and educators at the University of South Carolina, and a large military base. The city has nearly 750 restaurants (including some award-winning barbecue joints) and 32 museums. The crime levels within city limits remain a problem point—the city was ranked as the 25th most dangerous city in the U.S.—but some of the surrounding towns are statistically much safer, and still affordable.
For instance, in the nearby suburb of Lexington, buyers can get a new three-bedroom, 2.5-bath Colonial Revival home for right around $230,000. The town attracts young professionals and families with its highly rated public schools, multiple parks and nature preserves, and its own fun winery.
Median home list price: $189,750 Median days on market: 62
Five-bedroom home in Pittsburgh
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After years of industrial decline, Steel City has become the poster child for urban renewal. It’s now a tech hot spot and medical hub, and it regularly comes up on national lists of best cultural and dining destinations. The city of 300,000 residents has a staggering 1,800-plus restaurants—offering everything from vegan pierogies to award-winning Basque cuisine—and 129 museums, far more than any of the other cities on this list.
All that revitalization doesn’t make up for the fact that the city is still bleeding population. Since 2010, the city lost 1.4% of its population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But here’s the thing: Fewer people means more housing options for buyers—and better deals. Techies and other young professionals have been snatching up large homes in Brighton Heights for a steal, like this historic five-bedroom for $199,000.
“The basic story is the death rate is higher than the birth rate,” says Bob Strauss, professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, who says the net in-migration hasn’t caught up to the existing housing stock. “But what you’ve got in Pittsburgh is a relatively safe, culturally diverse, and affordable place to live.”
Buyers who want to enjoy all of Pittsburgh’s cultural capital can get some serious deals in hip enclaves like East Liberty and Lawrenceville, where you can get a redone three-bedroom row house for just $239,900.
Median home list price: $284,425 Median days on market: 61
Knoxville, TN three-bedroom
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With its burgeoning downtown scene and location nestled near the Great Smoky Mountains, Knoxville has been drawing new residents in recent years. Its population has increased 5.2% over the past decade thanks to its temperate climate, lower cost of living, and an unemployment rate of just 2.6%.
That growth has led to a steady run-up in home prices in the college town, with sellers getting about 99% of their asking price through much of 2018, according to local real estate agents.
That might seem like a deterrent—and indeed, entry-level homes are still flying off the market. But houses in the $300,000-plus range are sitting around longer—for somewhere between 90 to 120 days, says Glenda Johnson, broker-agent at Coldwell Banker Jim Henry. That means buyers who have a higher budget are poised to score a sweet home for a steal, like this three-bedroom Colonial in the popular Seven Springs subdivision.
Median home list price: $279,050 Median days on market: 58
Warehouse apartment in New Haven, CT
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After decades of decline in manufacturing jobs and languishing downtown retail, New Haven’s population has been on a slow uptick for the past several years, and unemployment is finally below the national average at 3.1%.
The median days on market in the home of Yale—which along with a nationally regarded theater scene happens to have the best clam pizza on the face of the earth (yes, really)—is on par with the national averages. Like many other college towns, much of New Haven’s population is driven by transient students and faculty: Only 27.8% of housing units are owner-occupied.
That means buyers can pick and choose from a wide array of historic homes priced around $300,000 in fun areas like Wooster Square, like this chic three-bedroom loft in a sun-drenched warehouse for $335,500.
The market has been seeing a lot of action recently with tons of investors who have taken note of the growing strength of the market, says Jack Hill of Seabury Hill Realtors.
At the dawn of this decade, the U.S. was reeling from a real-estate crash and the worst economic downturn since the Depression. Home prices in some regions were starting to recover, but it seemed impossible that values would return anytime soon to their dizzying boomtime highs.
Few could have predicted that within a few years, the luxury market would not only recover but reach a staggering new height. A tidal wave of global wealth poured into U.S. real estate after the 2007-09 recession, creating in the 2010s a new segment of the market: ultraluxury homes targeted at the global billionaire elite.
Pricier and more lavish than anything that came before them, these homes had outsized amenities such as commercial-grade hair salons, hotel-worthy spas and home theaters with concession stands. As the extreme became commonplace, homeowners began to add more attention-grabbing features, such as shark tanks and private nightclubs.
Meanwhile, luxury-condominium buildings grew taller than ever. Standing 1,550-feet high with 131 stories, Central Park Tower in Manhattan is now the tallest residential building in the world.
Today, because so many buyers are wealthy enough to withstand the most severe economic swings, this new sector largely acts independently from the broader real-estate market. So while the number of sales are falling in many luxury markets across the country, six homes in the U.S. have closed for $100 million or more so far in 2019—the highest number for a single year. In 2010, there were none. That year, the highest sale price was $50 million (plus about $2 million of furnishings) for Le Belvedere, a Bel-Air mansion with a swan pond and a ballroom that could seat more than 200 people.
In 2010, the highest residential sale price was $50 million (plus about $2 million of furnishings) for Le Belvedere, a Bel-Air mansion. As pricey as this home is, it pales in comparison to the biggest sales these days.
David O. Marlow
“People don’t realize that there are two markets happening in the world,” said Oren Alexander, an agent at Douglas Elliman Real Estate. “We’ve been hearing that things have slowed down, and that’s true—no doubt about it. But the unique, one-of-a-kind, top-notch product? That market is doing better than ever.”
Home sales of $50 million or more used to be an anomaly, with two or less each year in the early 2000s, according to Miller Samuel, a residential appraisal and consulting company. In 2014 that figured spiked to 23, and hasn’t fallen below 12 since.
In Los Angeles, the average home-sales price soared 153% to $2.5 million between the third quarter of 2009 and the same quarter of 2019, according to Miller Samuel. Florida’s ritzy barrier island of Palm Beach saw its average home price surge 77% in that same period, while Miami’s jumped 72%. Manhattan, which has stumbled in recent years, still had an average sales price of $1.65 million in the third quarter, 25% higher than the same quarter 10 years earlier.
A decade that will be remembered for its excesses, the 2010s saw the first-ever condo sales topping $100 million, then $200 million. In the 2010s billionaires bought not just one, but multiple $100 million-plus homes for themselves.
Some buyers paid tens of millions of dollars for houses, only to raze them and build brand-new mansions in their place. They bought newly constructed, multimillion-dollar condos and gut-renovated them, putting existing high-end finishes out with the trash. They upholstered their walls in red leather from the uber-luxury handbag brand Hermès. The youngest members of the family got playhouses that cost more than conventional homes.
The postrecession flood of buyers has now slowed, and far more home sellers seek nine-figure price tags than actually achieve them. Still, it is clear that ultraluxury sales are now a fixture of the marketplace.
The $100 million sale “is now a thing,” said real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel. “This will not go away.”
In the 2010s, hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin poured at least $820 million into home purchases in New York, Palm Beach, Chicago and London. Since 2011, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spent at least $250 million on real estate. Embattled WeWork founder Adam Neumann has paid about $90 million for six homes since 2012, including a California estate with a guitar-shape living room. Natural gas billionaire Michael S. Smith paid $110 million in 2018 for an oceanfront compound on Malibu’s Carbon Beach. What Mr. Smith paid is more than 1,500 times the U.S. median household income for that year, or $63,179, according to census data. It’s enough to buy 550 Ferraris, or more than 450 houses priced at $243,225, the current median value of a home in the U.S.
“These are numbers that mere mortals don’t pay for housing,” said Mr. Miller.
How did we get here?
A mid-2010s photo of a private nightclub at the home of Paris Hilton.
Lisa Corson for The Wall Street Journal
Back in 2010, Uber and Airbnb were fledgling startups. Instagram had just launched. Many people used Amazon.com primarily for buying books. Many tech companies have seen expansive growth since then, yielding massive amounts of wealth for their founders. Meanwhile, vast fortunes were created in emerging economies across the world, such as China, Russia and Brazil.
“Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen a recovery from the financial crisis and a long boom in stock prices,” said Maya Imberg, director of Thought Leadership and Analytics at Wealth-X. “That’s pushed up the overall amount of wealth in the world.”
In 2009 there were 174,000 people world-wide with a net worth of $30 million or more, according to Wealth-X. By 2019 that number had jumped to 275,000.
This generation of affluent people has eagerly purchased luxury real estate in their home countries and around the world to diversify their assets or escape political instability at home, said Liam Bailey, head of Knight Frank’s residential-research team. “Wealth has become much more mobile,” he said. “The new wealth that has been created in emerging markets in particular has a very global outlook.”
Today, he added, international ultrahigh-net-worth individuals typically have at least three or four homes in multiple cities outside their home country. With interest rates low after the financial crisis, “investors were running around the globe investing in real estate as a way to generate higher returns,” Mr. Miller said. “It was a frenzy.”
One57 sits on what’s known as Billionaires’ Row.
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A key turning point came in 2012, when former Citigroup Chairman Sandy Weill sold his penthouse at Manhattan’s 15 Central Park West for $88 million—roughly twice what he had paid for it in 2007—to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev. That deal “opened up a whole new echelon of what could be,” said Corcoran chief executive Pamela Liebman.
With land prices high and credit tight in the wake of the recession, developers buoyed by investment dollars built almost exclusively high-end product, Mr. Miller said. The result was an “explosion of luxury new builds” in cities such as New York, London and Los Angeles, said Mr. Bailey, reversing an earlier trend where buyers would pay a premium for established, old-money buildings. “It almost created a brand-new marketplace.”
In Manhattan, for example, new-construction luxury towers like One57 sprang up on what is now called Billionaires’ Row, taking advantage of new technology to build taller buildings than ever before as they competed to lure wealthy international buyers. “You’ve got this arms race between developers, who are using architecture and design to stand out from the crowd,” Mr. Bailey said. “You end up with these incredible buildings.”
In 2014, tech entrepreneur Michael Dell set a new Manhattan record when he bought a condo at One57 for $100.47 million. In 2015, an investor group led by billionaire hedge-fund manager William Ackman paid $91.5 million for another unit in the same building. In 2017, an unknown buyer paid $91.1 million for a penthouse at 432 Park Avenue, a nearly 1,400-foot-high tower on Billionaires’ Row.
The past decade will be known for redefining luxury, as developers sought to wow buyers by piling on the most over-the-top features. “The amenities have doubled and quadrupled,” said Manhattan real-estate agent Richard Steinberg.
It was the decade when sellers put homes on the market with Lamborghinis, Warhols and Picassos included in the asking price.
It was the decade when Miami’s Porsche Design Tower was built with glass-walled garages adjacent to the units and accessed by a specially designed car elevator, allowing residents to park just outside their apartments, even 60 stories in the air.
In 2017, a Beverly Hills spec house was listed for $100 million with a Champagne vault filled with 170 bottles of Cristal, and a full-time house manager whose salary had been prepaid for two years.
A sauna in an East Hampton home.
Dorothy Hong for The Wall Street Journal
That same year, a Los Angeles spec house dubbed Billionaire hit the market with two fully stocked wine cellars, a candy room filled with treats from Dylan’s Candy Bar and an elevator clad in crocodile skin. The lower level had a four-lane bowling alley with bowling shoes in various sizes. The house sold this year for $94 million.
In Boston, the under-construction St. Regis Residences will offer buyers personal butler service and the option of having a watch-winder in the closet. “Always reliable and faithful, your butler will come to understand your exact preferences and even anticipate your needs,” the website boasts.
Features now routine in high-end properties, like home automation systems, weren’t long ago considered “super luxury and unattainable to the average person,” said real-estate agent Catherine Marcus Bassick. “What defined luxury in 2009 is not the luxury we would describe now.”
A $24 million property in suburban McLean, VA, which has yet to be built, is this week’s most expensive new listing on realtor.com®.
The 1.51-acre lot is located approximately 10 miles from Washington, DC, and it last changed hands in 2011 for $1.3 million.
Permits have been approved for a lavish, 15,000-square-foot design, and construction will begin in February or March 2020, according to listing agentFouad Talout with Long & Foster McLean.
“We’re not waiting for the buyer,” he says. “If a buyer comes along now, they could choose some of the finishes. That property is going to be completed the same way that it’s being concepted right now. What you see in the photos will be used.”
The photos are renderings of what the final project will look like.
Most expensive new listing
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Domed entry
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Living room
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Dining room
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Kitchen
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Rec room
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Pool and covered patio
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When complete, the dwelling by Custom Design Concepts Architecture + Interiors will feature six beds and eight baths. Standout flourishes include a domed reception hall, formal dining room, formal living room, and guesthouse.
The layout also features a rec room, home theater, and family room. Outside there will be multiple decks, a covered patio, and pool. There will be garage space for 10 vehicles.
Talout notes that the home is being designed with an international buyer in mind, starting with its steel framing and construction in a European style.
“The exterior of the house is going to be like a French-style chateau, which is timeless,” he says.“It brings the best of both worlds—the modern interior, plus the timeless design exterior.”
Another key selling point is the exclusive locale, which has been home to members of the political elite, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
And with construction about to start, all the place needs is a well-funded buyer to turn this house into a home.
Candy cane columns, graham cracker walls, frosted rooftops with gumdrop details—all are hallmarks of the holiday gingerbread home construction season. But not all gingerbread houses are held together by royal icing.
Gingerbread in home design refers to the ornate wood cutouts adorning the exterior of Victorian, Colonial, Tudor, and other style homes in fashion around the late 1800s.
Dormers, gables, scrolls, and all kinds of intricate trim were first made widely available after the Civil War, thanks to the invention of the power scroll saw, which could mass-produce those carved wood details.The pieces were then loaded onto rail cars and shipped across the country.
The result was an affordable way for Americans to re-create the whimsical architectural trim favored in lavish European Victorian homes and nab a bit of that luxury for themselves.
The term “gingerbread” was later coined in the 1950s, after American tourists arrived in Haiti and fell in love with its marriage of French and Victorian sensibilities. They were inspired to create a new wave of fanciful, light-as-air architecture, drenched in candy-coated colors, giving them the look of confectionery fairy-tale homes.
In almost all neighborhoods across the country, gingerbread homes are still welcome eye candy. There are bed-and-breakfast gingerbreads, cozy family homes, and a few properties ready for a makeover. But they’re all decked out in their wood-trimmed finest, and prepared to delight visitors for decades to come.
Take a look at these 12 gingerbread houses for sale, and see for yourself how magical a little wood trim can be. No sugary icing (or cleanup) required!
Delicious details: Built in 1890, this 5,500-square-foot gingerbread sits on a half-acre in the historic Wethersfield Green neighborhood. With a total of 22 rooms, including four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, there’s plenty of room for a family to stretch out. This three-story home has a wraparound porch, 9-foot ceilings, and a unique studio and darkroom space, which has been used for commercial photography over the past 40 years.
Delicious details: This 1868-built Victorian has been featured on HGTV and This Old House magazine, according to the listing. Sitting on 2 acres in the village of Shelburne Falls, the home has been maintained and updated over the years. The five-bedroom, two-bath home measures 3,900 square feet. Highlights include a copper roof, wood floors, large kitchen and laundry areas, and attached studio with office.
Delicious details: This Victorian is on the market for the first time in over 100 years! It sits on a quarter-acre lot just one block away from Amelia Island’s historic Centre Street, with its shopping and dining venues, and is just minutes from the beach. The 3,000-square-foot home was built in 1904 and has six bedrooms and four bathrooms. The home features stately fireplaces, 10-foot ceilings with crown molding, pine floors, wainscoting, and more. A 337-square-foot guest cottage with storage and workshop is included.
Delicious details: This 9-acre estate includes a Queen Anne Victorian built in 1894 with more than 3,000 square feet of living space, including four bedrooms and two baths. Recent updates include a kitchen addition with white oak cabinets, reclaimed board floors, a security system, high-speed internet, and new exterior paint. Vintage details remain, including the stained glass, and both front and rear stairs. The property comes with two barns, a detached garage, and pond.
Delicious details: From the curb, this whimsical home looks like something out of a children’s tale. But inside, the Tudor is roomy and modern, with an updated kitchen and bathroom. The two- bedroom, one-bathroom, 1,500-square-foot home was built in 1981 and is full of surprises—like the upstairs loft with built-in bunk beds, and an unfinished basement with endless possibilities.
Delicious details: Over the years, many visitors to the Laurel Highlands have stayed in this Victorian beauty, currently being operated as a B&B. The five-bedroom, three-bathroom, 2,000-square-foot house was built in 1902 and features a cedar wraparound porch, pellet stove, and large kitchen with butler’s pantry. Many furnishings are included in the purchase price.
Delicious details: Original elements of this 1895 Colonial include the gingerbread trim and pumpkin pine floors. The three-bedroom, 2.5-bath home features a lovely kitchen, and the dining room with built-in bar and wine area are new. The quarter-acre lot includes lush landscaping and slate patio. The location is just a short walk to the train to New York City.
Delicious details: Sitting on three-quarters of an acre in a neighborhood of historic homes, this 1835-built carpenter Gothic gingerbread cuts an imposing figure from the curb. It’s filled with details like built-ins, and features a gorgeous glass, vaulted conservatory. The 3,100-square-foot home has four bedrooms and 3.5 baths. It features a modern interior, with a Shaker cherry kitchen, herringbone-patterned oak flooring, in-law suite, and more. Outside, a stone patio and heated, saltwater pool offer stylish and luxurious living and entertaining spaces.
Delicious details: Previously used as an office, this gingerbread home was built in 1894. The purchase price includes Architectural Review Board-approved plans for a new owner’s suite, for conversion to a residential space. The three-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom property sits on a half-acre with lush vegetation. Original features include the staircase, mantel, wood floors, and exterior architectural details.
Delicious details: This 3,700-square-foot home is in “moderate disrepair,” according to the listing, and the interiors are outdated. But when the five- bed, 2.5-bath abode was built in 1900, it was a showplace with a corner turret, front-facing gables, and ornate gingerbread trim. It was last renovated in 1995, including historically sensitive updates. The acre lot also includes a pool, patio and changing room, rear deck with gazebo, hot tub, and two-story garage.
Delicious details: This two- bedroom, one-bath, 875-square-foot cottage was originally built around 1900 and reconstructed in 1995 with specialty milled lumber and gingerbread detailing, metal ceilings, and wood floors—all the better to replicate the look popular in the area during the 1800s. Currently being offered as a popular short-term rental on Airbnb, the home is just blocks away from shopping and dining venues, and comes fully furnished.
Delicious details: This pink gingerbread is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, made famous by Rachel Paris, who set a children’s book there titled, “Silk Stocking Street.” Her parents, Henry and Pauline Paris, moved into the 4,500-square-foot abode in 1900. Many original details remain, including the front porch, gingerbread trim, stained glass, and gold leaf moldings. Other highlights of the four- bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house include a pool, pool house, and lush, mature landscaping.
In a perfect world, the holiday season would be a magical, stress-free stretch of time when we slow down, bake gingerbread cookies, and savor decorating our Christmas tree. That’s the way it’s painted on the Hallmark Channel, anyway.
The reality? Trimming the tree—and keeping it upright—can present a variety of challenges.
As we’ve highlighted in the past, #christmasfails come in all shapes and sizes, and this year, we couldn’t help but notice how many people actually documented (and posted!) their very own Christmas trees toppling over.
Most of these accidents occurred at the hands—er, paws—of their lovable pets. Were these pesky animals just curious about that big green thing sitting in the living room, or were they hellbent on causing chaos? We’ll never know.
But what we do know is that the gaffes captured in the following videos are some of the best, most unfortunate Christmas tree fails we’ve seen in a while.
And kudos to the folks who decided to share these Yuletide disasters with the rest of the world, via Instagram. May we all find the same levity when a similar snafu arises in our own homes.
A miniature Christmas tree is about the height of a cat scratching post, and it’s fun for cats to paw at, so what part of putting the tree on the ground sounded like a good idea?
It was only a matter of time before this frisky feline would sink its claws onto the branches and have to hold on for dear life.
The lesson here would be to elevate the small tree onto a table, although that’s not always a foolproof solution, as you’ll see in some of the other videos below.
It took a mere 10 seconds for this curious kitty to start pulling on this tree, and because of its small stature, have it come crashing to the ground.
As we said above, a miniature tree on the ground and a pet don’t mix, but we’re actually impressed by how little time it took for this cat to get all up in that tree’s business. Knowing they have a particularly rambunctious cat, maybe next year, they’ll keep the tree out of kitty’s reach.
The body language of these two dogs at the end of the video says it all: They knocked over the tree, and they feel very guilty about it. But it’s not their fault that the tree is full of round ornaments that look like tennis balls!
If there’s a chance that your pets might try to grab ornaments off the tree, be sure to place them up extra high—especially the ones that look like snacks or toys.
• • #masterofdestruction #christmasfail #treedown #catsofinstagram #christmascat
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Oh and Gus really wants you to know, “But tell them the tree topper got on!” It did. Followed by the rest of the ornaments falling off. #christmasfail #christmastreefail #dyyyyyying 
Bless you, @bethygreenwald for capturing this. EDITED TO ADD CONTEXT: This is my husband Gus (putting our Yukon Cornelius tree topper on our tree) and me (the singing clapping monkey), celebrating the final touch on our Christmas tree, after I spent an hour or so putting up all the lights and ornaments. Our friend Beth was over and, having never celebrated Christmas, she had never seen a tree being trimmed before. So I was like, "Oh, this is what we do! So cute, right?" CUT TO… #treetoppler #dohchristmastree And for real, I swear, Gus is totally fine! Apparently Douglas Firs are great for breaking falls. The tree? Missing a few chunks. But we are still laughing. That Hail Mary reach for the ceiling… Hope you enjoy as much as we did and this helps spread some Christmas cheer!