【Yahoo Finance】How Whole Foods and Trader Joe's may be linked to surging housing prices

Recent data suggests the presence of upscale grocers like ALDI, Whole Foods — owned by Amazon (AMZN) — and Trader Joe’s significantly boosts the value of other real estate in the neighborhood, fueling a heated debate about gentrification and a lack of affordable housing.

Recently, data provider ATTOM Data Solutions and real estate company Zillow (Z) looked at home values across the U.S. in order to see if the organic, trendy grocers “are driving skyrocketing real estate prices, or are building on larger trends of gentrification.”

And what the firms found in their joint study was a relatively strong correlation between home prices and the grocer’s location. Home sellers near a Trader Joe’s saw an average return on investment of 51%, while those near a Whole Foods saw a 41% increase, the study found

According to Zillow, houses near Trader Joes or Whole Foods began to appreciate more quickly after those stores moved in than before — and that they appreciated twice as quickly as the average home in the United States.

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