It wasn’t long ago, when Pittsburgh media would go absolutely nuts for any kind of external validation; if we were on a list of Top Cities for Cats who Play Baseball, we’d be like, “Haha yes! Sucks to be you, Cleveland!”
I know, because I wrote a fair amount of those stories. Hey, you have to fill the massive, ever-hungry maw of The News Hole every day with something, and sometimes there weren’t enough fires and Stillers (or Stillers on fire) to fill it. It was lazy and not particularly enlightening, but everybody loves to see (or imagine) how they stack up.
So, my apologies for doing just that again — taking a laudatory notice from an obscure real estate blog and spinning a story out of it. But, CommercialCafe just released a study that says Pittsburgh saw the 2nd-highest jump in median home values in the Rust Belt (industrial cities stretching from Baltimore to Wisconsin) from 2017-22: a 69% increase.
Other numbers from this Rust Belt-centric study:
- In Pittsburgh, household incomes saw a 38% increase from 2017 to 2022, the city placing 3rd for this metrics among cities over 200,000 residents.
- Pittsburgh residents earn $63,400 yearly per household which is the 3rd-highest sum among cities in this population bucket.
- Pittsburgh enjoys the 6th-lowest poverty rate among entries in 200,000+ population category (19% as of 2022), following a 1.2% decrease from 2017 through 2022.
- Additionally, Fort Wayne, Rochester, and Pittsburgh were the only cities on this list that experienced an uptick in their population sizes.
Like everything housing-related, this is great if you’re a homeowner, and bad if you’re not one but want to be. (As usual, renters are ignored entirely). Though this survey was conducted with real Census data by well-credentialed academics, here’s why I’m not breaking out the party hats. Having your city’s housing stock appreciate in value is a good thing — nobody wants to invest in a place where their home will lose value over time. But rapid, intense appreciation is also not great. Those residents who weren’t able to buy in when it was cheaper find it’s too late, which is a bad outcome for many reasons, but especially this one — it locks people out of an opportunity to build wealth (sometimes the only one available) because those home values tend to go up over time.
But if you’re one of the fortunate ones who still has the ability to look, or if you just want to be a looky-loo, we still, as always, have a few options for you.
For sale: 3830 Wealth St., Brighton Heights, $250,000.
If we’re talking about building wealth via homeownership, is it too on-the-nose to feature a house literally on Wealth St.? Look, it’s not the easiest way to make money; it’s probably easier learning to throw a 100-mph fastball, or acquiring great-grandparents who built a steel mill 100 years ago. For the rest of us, options are limited. However, there are still some very nice houses for sale in Pittsburgh that seem fairly inexpensive, and most of them are in Brighton Heights, for some reason. This brick 1925 four-square just seems to exude timeless dependability; even orange walls in the living room recall the glory days of the ‘70s, and not their excesses.
You don’t see a lot of green buildings nowadays, do you? No, not the kind with solar panels and extra insulation — an apartment painted dark forest green. It’s not an unappetizing color, really. Bryant St. has a surprising number of great restaurants that nobody talks about: Teppanyaki Kyoto, Smiling Banana Leaf, Applewood Smoke Burger Company, and even the deli at Bryant Street Market. All are nice things to have in walking distance.
For sale: 2051 Veronica St., Troy Hill, $259,900.
Why can’t we build houses like this anymore? Like, I understand why we can’t build Gilded Age mansions like those in Allegheny West — those skills weren’t passed down, unfortunately — but this kind of house is pretty uncomplicated! It adheres to timeless principles of design, offering a comfortable transition between inner-sanctum privacy and neighborly engagement (otherwise known as a front porch). The interior even bows to most of the current fads — sad beige minimalism, mostly — and pulls it off with aplomb.
For rent: The Wendover Community, 5562 Hobart St., Squirrel Hill, $1100-1,680/month.
Pittsburgh only has a handful of these beautiful pre-war apartment buildings, which look like they’re crying out for a good Manhattan murder mystery TV series. The beautiful white terra-cotta-and-brick Gothic exterior hardly shows its age at all, which is wild considering how hard the years since 1928 were; Pittsburgh’s main exports were steel and toxic soot for most of that time. There’s a less-attractive 1940s-era addition that’s much of what you see from most angles, but it’s worth looking around for the grand entrance.
For sale: 19 Montana St., Observatory Hill, $250,000.
Look, I have no idea what possesses someone to brick-in a window. (Maybe they were early goths who dreaded the prospect of too much natural light?) I’m sure punching a hole back through the brick for a new window is no picnic, either. Maybe that’s a dealbreaker, but the rest of this house is so nice that it’s worth contemplating anyway. There’s lots of attractive woodwork (that mantle over the fireplace, in particular), which blends surprisingly well with a lot of bright white paint.
For rent: Highmont, 6200 Fifth Ave., Shadyside, $950-1,010/month.
Think for just a second how hard it would be to build a neighborhood like Shadyside from scratch right now. You’re going to have gigantic Gilded Age mansions — and then put big apartment buildings right across the street? Filled with college students? Imagine the uproar! The genteel gloves come off when property values are at stake. It’s chaos, but it’s still a pretty nice place to live. These apartments are nothing special, but they are affordable, convenient to job centers, schools, etc. Just don’t think too much about what was likely torn down to build them.
