Florida Virtual Houses

Real Estate’s Final Four

April 3rd, 2009

Here's a cute item. Real estate search site Cyberhomes.com has pitted the NCAA Final Four cities against each other in a real estate version of the tournament. The contenders: Chapel Hill, NC, Villanova, PA, East Lansing MI and Storrs, Connecticut.

The site looked at factors important to homeowners that such as 12-month change in home value, unemployment and recent job growth, cost of living, the number of owners vs. renters, daily commute time and the number of sunny days. A city earned one point for having a better number in each of the categories. Here's out Cyberhomes played it out:

Game 1: Chapel Hill beats Villanova for having a lower cost of living, higher job growth, shorter commute time and more sunny days per year. The final score is 4-3, UNC edging out Villanova.

Game 2: East Lansing tops Storrs with a lower cost of living, higher job growth, and a higher number of owners vs. renters. Storrs, however, does boast a lower unemployment rate, more sunny days and a much smaller 12-month change in home values. The final score is a tie at 3-3, which brings us to overtime. UConn beats The Spartans in overtime. The huge differential in 12-month change in estimated home value is the tiebreaker. Storrs comes is at just -1.77 percent and East Lansing at -12.53 percent.

Championship: Moving on to the final match of Chapel Hill vs. Storrs – its small town vs. small town, but Chapel Hill comes out on top as the NCAA Real Estate National Champion. The Tarheels cream the Huskies 6-1, better in every category except average commute time.

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