Three Philly Neighborhoods to Watch in 2017

The online brokerage Redfin named Spruce Hill, East Kensington and Point Breeze as the city's hottest neighborhoods this year.

Spruce Hill's substantial rowhomes and twins are popular with the Penn crowd. | Photo: Plan Philly/Eyes on the Street, used under CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0

Spruce Hill’s substantial rowhomes and twins are popular with the Penn crowd. | Photo: Plan Philly/Eyes on the Street, used under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

The online brokerage Redfin has released its list of the “Hottest Neighborhoods for 2017,” and while none of the 10 hottest neighborhoods nationwide are in Philadelphia, it did offer up its choices for the three hottest neighborhoods in the city.

Topping the list is Spruce Hill in University City, where the median-priced home sells for $415,200, making it the most expensive of the three by almost double. Redfin agent Jimmy Caraway had this to say about the neighborhood:

“Spruce Hill is one of the few places in Philly where you can find large Victorian-style homes with lots of character on nice-sized plots of land. Often in other urban neighborhoods in this city, it’s common to see row houses that have no yard, but not the case in Spruce Hill. In addition to those large beautiful older homes, the neighborhood is near both University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, and the University of Pennsylvania offers a subsidy to people affiliated with the school who move to the area.”

Coming in second is East Kensington, where the median-priced home sells for $212,000. In third place: Point Breeze, where the median sale price is a mere $178,000.

Homes fly off the shelves in all three neighborhoods: the median days-on-market figure is 45 in East Kensington, 44 in Point Breeze and a blisteringly short 29 in Spruce Hill. Callaway attributed that neighborhood’s popularity to the Penn faculty and staff who choose to reside there, egged on by those subsidies.

Redfin bases its choices on the number of pageviews and favorites by visitors to its site.

Follow Sandy Smith on Twitter.