Housing prices? Yes, we’re still thinking about them. Thanks to a new dataset, we are able to continue our project of building home sale pricing dashboards for the 11-county metro area.

The trend of rising housing costs, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, has been well established. Prices for both new and older homes have been steadily increasing in many parts of the country. In the metro Atlanta area, these home price increases have been of different levels of severity, and are not uniform.

Last summer, we embarked on a journey to build interactive web applications visualizing historic housing prices by county in the metro area. You can find the collection of blog posts (and links to the web apps) here:

This new dashboard for DeKalb County leverages a statewide dataset from ATTOM Data Solutions. This rich dataset contains record-level home sales which we have aggregated to the Census tract level, with transactions dating back to January 2020.

The dashboard (built for desktop, not mobile screens) can be accessed here, and we have included a screenshot of the dashboard below. It features an expandable left-hand side panel with a toggle for the dashboard variable: total sales, median price per square foot, and median overall price. Sidebar sliders allow filtering for transaction time frame, construction vintage of the home, and city/region toggle.

Findings

Here are a few pertinent findings highlighted by the dashboard:

  • From 2020 to 2024:
    • 51,359 homes sold countywide;
    • the overall median sales price countywide during this time period was $285,000, while the median price per square foot was roughly $150;
    • the median sale price per square foot rose about 25% over this four-year period.
  • Peak median prices occurred in June 2023, with a countywide median of $339,000 and $186 per square foot.
    • Countywide median prices have show distinct “peaks” around the middle of each of the past 3 successive years;
    • The most recent countywide price per SF, $159, is the lowest median since Q1 of 2023.
  • Since just 2022:
    • Nearly 23,000 homes have sold countywide;
    • the overall median sales price was $307,000;
    • the median sale price per square foot was roughly $164 but has fallen by almost 2.5%.
  • Homes sold in the Decatur/Druid Hills sub-geography from 2020 to 2024 featured:
    • a median construction “year built” of 1959;
    • a median size of 1,814 square feet;
    • a median price per square foot of over $250;
    • a median overall sales price of $485,000;
    • and a 10% increase in overall sales price over the past 4 years.
  • Contrast the Decatur/Druid Hills sub-geography with the Stone Mountain and Lithonia/E. DeKalb sub-geographies, which between 2020 and 2024 featured:
    • a much newer median “year built” of 1990;
    • a relatively larger median home size of 1,916 square feet;
    • a much lower price per square foot of just over $100;
    • a media overall sales price of $214,400;
    • but a very robust 56.9% increase in median sales prices over the past 4 years.

Happy data exploring, and we hope you are enjoying this series of local housing dashboards around metro Atlanta!