It is common for home buyers, particularly those moving to St Louis from outside the area or perhaps moving to a different part of town than where they currently reside, to inquire about crime rates and other safety issues related to the area they are looking to move to. Today, like pretty much every other topic out there, there is a wealth of information available on the internet with regard to crime activity however sometimes it is difficult to find real data and not just “headlines” from local news stories or social media posts. Therefore, in keeping with our mission of providing up to date, accurate and trustworthy information that is relevant to homeowners, as well as buyers and sellers, we developed our own Index to make it easier to people to evaluate an area. Since we are in the real estate business and the people we are providing this information for are interested in home values, we wanted to have our index consider both crime rates as well as home price appreciation. As a result, our Home Appreciation & Safety (HASTM) Index was born.
The crime data we use comes from the Uniform Crime Reporting Report from the Missouri Highway Patrol for the year 2016 for violent crime and property crime, the population numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau and the home price data from STL Market Reports. For our Home Appreciation & Safety (HASTM) Index, we multiply the median home price change by the rate of violent crime. Since the larger the crime rate number is (in terms of 1 violent crime per X number of people) the safer the area is, and the higher the home price change, the more appreciation there is, so when multiplying these together the higher the ending index number is, the better.
City of Ballwin With Low Crime Rate and Good Home Appreciation Tops List For Home Appreciation & Safety (HASTM) Index
Of the cities reviewed and shown on the table below, Ballwin had the lowest rate of crime per capita for both violent crimes and well as property crimes with rates of 1 in 2,780 and 1 in 128 respectively. Add to that Ballwin’s above-average home price appreciation over the past 12 months of 7.20% and the result is a 200.14 on our Home Price Appreciation/Safety (HASTM) index. This gives Ballwin the highest index on our list making it perhaps the best place on the list to invest in a home. Coming in a distant second is the city of Creve Coeur with an index of 116.97.
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City Of St Louis Has Highest Violent Crime and Property Crime Rate…
At the other end of the spectrum, is the city of St Louis with the highest violent crime rate at 1 out of every 52 people being a victim of violent crime during 2016 as well as the highest property crime rate with 1 out of every 17 people being a victim of property crime. Home price appreciation in the city of St Louis during the most recent 12 months was just 3.85%, well below the median home price appreciation of 5.31% for the St Louis MSA. Crime in the city of St Louis couple with the low rate of home price appreciation gives the City of St Louis a Home Appreciation & (HASTM) Safety Index of just 2.02, putting it at the bottom of our list.
St Louis Home Appreciation & Safety (HASTM) Index – May 2017
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