Forsyth County Housing Dashboard

June is American Housing Month, so we think it’s a good time to showcase a new dashboard that takes a deep dive into housing market trends in Forsyth County. The visual is powered by data from the county’s tax assessor’s office and is current through April 2023. Future plans include developing similar tools for other metro counties in the region, so keep an eye out!

Rising housing costs, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, have been well established. Prices for new and older homes alike have been steadily increasing in many parts of the country. To help us better understand the housing market in Forsyth County in particular, we have collected, geocoded, and aggregated home sales data (both single-family and condominium/townhomes) to the Census tract level in the interactive dashboard below. To create this app, we have leveraged an open-source frontend Python library called Streamlit.

The dashboard below features an expandable left-hand side panel with data filters for transaction time frame, construction vintage, and Census tract geography. Darker shades of Census tracts correspond to higher median sales price per square foot. In addition to the embedded dashboard below, you can access the standalone dashboard app here.

Housing Dashboard

Findings

Here are a few pertinent findings highlighted by the dashboard:

Between 2021 and 2023, over 13,000 homes were sold countywide with a median sales price of $500,000 (all construction vintages).
- By contrast, over the same time period, homes constructed between 2011 and 2023 and sold only in the South Forsyth sub-geography sold for a median sales price of $633,700.
- Keeping these same parameters equal but shortening the time frame to include only 2022 and 2023 sales, the median sales price jumps to an astounding $770,000.
Home size is growing across the county!
- Expanding the “Transaction year” slider to include all sales but only selecting homes built prior to 2000, we see that nearly 8,000 such homes have sold with a median size of 2,141 square feet. If we move the “Year built” slider buttons to the far right to select only homes built since 2011, we find that over 15,500 such homes have sold with a median size of 3,050 square feet.
- Put another way, from 2018 to 2023, homes built since 2011 have been roughly 40% larger than homes built prior to 2000.
Geographically, the highest-priced homes built prior to 2000 have sold along the county’s Lake Lanier coastline, a trend that somewhat holds true for newer construction homes.
- However, homes built since 2011 selling in South Forsyth at the higher end of the range, along with the lakefront portions of the county.
If we “extrude” the county’s Census tracts by toggling the 3D view (accessed in the dashboard side panel), we see that most homes have sold in the west and northern portions of the county.
- Visually, these Census tracts appear as the “tallest” on the map. Census tracts with fewer sales transactions appear “shorter.”
- Note that in 3D view, you can rotate and change the pitch and angle by holding down the shift key while dragging the map view.
Over time, home sale prices (of all construction vintages) remained relatively stable from early 2018 to through late 2020. But beginning in early 2021, home prices began to skyrocket, with growth remaining strong through the middle of 2022.
- While prices dipped in Q3 and Q4 2022, sales prices appear to be trending up in the early going of 2023.
Finally, Census tracts comprising the North Forsyth and West Forsyth sub-geographies feature much newer housing stock than the rest of the county despite selling for less per square foot than homes in the Cumming and South Forsyth sub-geographies. This trend points towards greater demand in these latter portions of the county, despite a greater amount of older housing stock.