Field of dreams?
Rice rockets to top spot in U.S. ranking of most expensive stadium-area homes
If you’re a homeowner in Houston, it’s really nice to live near Rice University’s football stadium (except perhaps on game days).
A new ranking from moveBuddha shows that in comparison with other U.S. cities that host major college football programs, homes in the 77005 ZIP code, where Rice Stadium is located, enjoy the widest positive gap in value between the stadium area’s average and the city’s average.
For the ranking, moveBuddha used home value data for 2019 from residential real estate platform Zillow. According to the data, the average home value in the city of Houston was $165,381 while the average home value in the Rice ZIP code was $625,114. That’s a difference of $459,733.
It’s worth noting that the data covers average home values, not average home prices.
Among all of the roughly 250 football stadiums that moveBuddha examined, the dollar gap between Rice Stadium and Houston was No. 1 “by a long shot,” the website notes.
“Rice is in a notably ritzier area of Houston … and the numbers clearly reflected that,” moveBuddha says.
After Rice and Houston, the next highest gap on the list ($216,204) was between Georgetown University’s football stadium and Washington, D.C.
A little further down the list is another Texas combo: Southern Methodist University’s Gerald J. Ford Stadium in University Park and the city of Dallas. According to moveBuddha, the average home value near SMU’s stadium was $412,933, while the city’s average home value was $223,433. That’s a difference of $189,500, putting this team in fourth place.
For its ranking, moveBuddha relied on the official address for each stadium. In the case of SMU, the mailing address for the stadium is a Dallas mailing address (5800 Ownby Dr.)
Other Texas locations with positive gaps in home values included:
- No. 11 — University of North Texas in Denton. Average home value near stadium: $341,781. Average home value in city: $206,568. Gap: $135,213.
- No. 20 (tie) — University of Houston. Average home value near stadium: $255,604. Average home value in city: $165,381. Gap: $90,223.
- No. 20 (tie) — Texas Southern University in Houston. Average home value near stadium: $255,604. Average home value in city: $165,381. Gap: $90,223.
- No. 22 — Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Average home value near stadium: $247,219. Average home value in city: $163,262. Gap: $83,957.
- No. 24 — University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Average home value near stadium: $253,891. Average home value in city: $172,309. Gap: $81,582.
For Prairie View A&M University in Prairie View and Texas State University in San Marcos, the average home values near the stadium and in the city were the same — $124,372 in Prairie View and $178,877 in San Marcos.
In Texas’ major metro areas, three stadium-and-city teams landed in negative territory:
- Houston Baptist University in Houston — Average home value in city: $165,381. Average home value near stadium: $86,213. Negative gap: $79,168.
- University of Texas at San Antonio — Average home value in city: $172,309. Average home value near stadium: $125,072. Negative gap: $47,237.
- University of Texas at Austin — Average home value in city: $342,701. Average home value near stadium: $312,839. Negative gap: $29,862.
