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50 | TH E M R EP O RT O R I G I NAT I O N S E R V I C I N G A NA LY T I C S S E C O N DA R Y M A R K E T ANALYTICS THE LATEST Millennial Meccas Boom in South and West Watauga, Texas, comes in as hottest spot for millennial buyers. C alifornia, Texas, and Colorado are luring millennial buyers—buy- ers who seek areas with solid job growth and affordable (for the area) housing markets, according to a new report by Realtor.com. Seven of the top 10 hottest ZIP codes for millennial migration are in these three states, with the Fort Worth suburb of Watauga leading the pack. Realtor.com ranked the hottest ZIP codes for this year, placing Watauga's 76148 at the top. The report called Watauga "a youth - ful and relatively dense suburban community [where] residents have easy access to a great res- taurant and craft brewery scene, cultural offerings like the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth— plus two football powerhouses, the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Christian University, less than 20 miles away." The dominant buyer seg - ment in Watauga, according to Realtor.com, is millennials. Those between the ages of 25 and 34 years old account for a third of all mortgages in the market, and, including those already in place, millennials make up two-thirds of the total population of owners in the area. "Twenty-one percent of mil - lennial households make over six figures," the report stated. Homes sell fast in Watauga, and job growth is steady. Collectively, it stated, "the top 10 hottest ZIPs are seeing average job growth of 2.3 percent this year, which is 35-percent stronger than the national rate." Close behind was Pleasant Hill, Calif., an outlier of San Francisco, where millennials are also the dominant homeowner popula - tion. Similar numbers for income, millennial population, and job growth filled out the remain- der of the top 10. Those cities were: Northglenn and Colorado Springs, Colorado; San Antonio, Texas; Melrose, Massachusetts; Crestwood, Missouri; Milwaukie, Oregon; and Petaluma and North Park, California. "Homes for sale in this year's hottest ZIP codes are selling almost as quickly as they hit the market," said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Realtor.com. "While millennials are usually a significant presence in most markets, their sheer size and buying power have made them a force to be reckoned with in these hot ZIP codes and given them the power to shift supply and demand dynamics." Up, Up, and Away Goes Home Equity Big price appreciations bump equity to nearly $13 trillion. T he aggregate amount of equity in U.S. residential homes has more than doubled since 2011, the result of a 40-percent price appreciation nationwide during that time. Even with that much of an increase in home equity—which hit a trough of $6.1 trillion in June 2011, but by June 2016 had risen to $12.7 trillion—there is still plenty more equity to be regained while home price appreciation contin - ues over the next year, according to CoreLogic's U.S. Economic Outlook for October 2016. "We project the nation- al CoreLogic Home Price Index will rise another 5 percent in the coming year, helping to boost home-equity wealth by close to $1 trillion," CoreLogic Chief Economist Frank Nothaft said. "In turn, this wealth gain should add to consumption spend- ing and contribute to economic growth in 2017." According to CoreLogic's most recent Home Equity Report released in mid-September, more than half a million (548,000) homeowners regained equity in the second quarter of 2016, bringing the total of residential homes with equity to approximately 47 million, or 93 percent. This left approximately 7 percent, or close to 3.6 million homeowners, in negative equity. "We see home prices rising another 5 percent in the coming year based on the latest projected national CoreLogic Home Price Index," said Anand Nallathambi, President and CEO of CoreLogic. "Assuming this growth is uni- form across the U.S., that should release an additional 700,000 homeowners from the scourge of negative equity." With the substantial rise in home equity, which is a key component of household wealth, there has been a corresponding increase in consumption spending and renovation expenditures. Moody's Analytics reported that consumption spending rises by approximately $2 for every $100 worth of housing wealth that is regained. "[A] $6 trillion rise in housing wealth has lifted consumer spending by more than $100 billion during the last five years," Nothaft said. "And renovation expenditures are up as well, further contributing to economic growth." According to CoreLogic, the average gain in home equity, or household wealth, from the middle of 2015, to the middle of 2016 was $11,000 per home - owner. The largest increases were seen in California, Oregon, and Washington, all of which had an average increase in equity of al- most $30,000 per homeowner. In Connecticut, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania, there was either a decline, or no change in the average amount of equity gained per homeowner.