The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week granting same-sex couples the right to marry in every state is likely to increase the number of new households formed by gay couples, and that could boost homeownership in the LGBT community.

The ruling could present an opportunity for homebuilders who cater to dual-income, move-up buyers.

56% of LGBT professionals said getting married is a strong motivator for buying a home

Homeownership among LGBT Americans lags behind other demographic sectors: In a survey last month by The National Association of Gay & Lesbian Real Estate Professionals and Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, 54% of LGBT participants said they owned their homes. That compares with the national homeownership rate of 63.8%.

The survey also noted that 56% of LGBT professionals said getting married is a strong motivator for buying a home. And 81% said a Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage would "make them feel more fiscally protected and confident."

Jeff Berger, founder of the NAGLREP, noted that marriage is a "historical trigger to home purchases," and the LGBT community, he added, is a "powerful market segment."

Buying power

In fact, that market segment has an estimated buying power of $840 billion, Berger said. And just weeks before the high court's ruling, the first-ever LGBT Home Buyer and Seller Survey revealed that 25% of participants planned to purchase real estate within the next three years.

The homes they would like to buy, the survey revealed, are mostly in safe neighborhoods with access to parks. Current homeowners are looking for larger dwellings, while non-homeowners pointed to outdoor living spaces and open-concept living areas as priorities. Gay men ranked a chef's kitchen high on the list of must-have amenities.

‘The Gayborhood Phenomenon’

The greatest impact of the Supreme Court's ruling could be in the 13 states that had not already approved same-sex marriages, including Texas and parts of the Southeast and Midwest. Still, over the last year or so, the number of legally married same-sex couples tripled to about 390,000, according to the Williams Institute. Approximately 600,000 couples are not married, The New York Times reported.

As more same-sex couples buy homes, property values in the neighborhoods where they settle are likely to rise.

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff and Chief Economist Stan Humphries, in their 2015 book "Zillow Talk: The New Rules of Real Estate," said home prices in historically gay neighborhoods have typically outperformed home values in nearby communities.

"Many gay communities across the country are no longer marginalized and undervalued… They’re coveted."

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In what they called "The Gayborhood Phenomenon," the two real estate experts pointed to Corona Heights in San Francisco, where 44.5% of the homes belong to gay couples and the median home value is $1.4 million. That compares with a median home price of $738,200 in the larger San Francisco metro area.

Like all rules, this one doesn’t apply to every gay community. A 2012 study published in the Harvard Business Review estimated that when a same-sex couple forms one household out of 1,000 in a socially liberal neighborhood, property values shoot up by 1%. But a lone gay couple who moves to a 1,000-home in an extremely conservative neighborhood can cause home prices to drop by 1%.

The price increase, the study's authors suggested, reflects an influx of cultural amenities that same-sex homeowners "tend to develop or enhance." In conservative communities, the price decline can reveal prejudice against gays.

Still, the Zillow authors noted: "Many gay communities across the country are no longer marginalized and undervalued… They’re coveted."

Destination neighborhoods

Zillow identified 10 U.S. neighborhoods with the largest share of gay couples: Corona Heights (San Francisco); Necko (Columbus, OH); McPherson (Dayton, OH); Eureka Valley-Dolores Heights-Castro (San Francisco); Poinsettia Heights (Ft. Lauderdale, FL); Grafton Hill (Dayton, OH); Edgewater (Cleveland); U Street Corridor (Washington, DC); Twin Peaks (San Francisco); and Downtown (Baltimore, MD).

And Trulia this month confirmed its 2012 finding that "the gayest neighborhoods across the country" usually are more expensive than others in the same ZIP code. In fact, the Trulia research showed, neighborhoods with a large proportion of homeowners who are gay men "have gone on a tear," with property values rising by $81 per square foot over three years — a 23% increase.

Prices are rising the quickest in a few Palm Springs, CA, neighborhoods; Noe Valley/Glen Park/ Diamond Heights (San Francisco); Pleasant Ridge (Detroit); and Castro (San Francisco).

Neighborhoods popular with lesbian homeowners also are getting more expensive, with home values rising 18% over three years.

Home values in those communities are growing fastest in Redwood Heights/Skyline (Oakland, CA); Avondale Estates (Atlanta); Jamaica Plain (Boston); Castro (San Francisco); and Guerneville (San Francisco), Trulia reported.

Joint custody

Buying an expensive home in a metropolitan area is easier with two incomes than with one, a fact of homeownership that often limits possession of those prize properties to dual-earner households. Some in the real estate industry have said legal, same-sex marriage will lead to more joint home purchases, and have noted that a working couple often has a better chance of qualifying for a mortgage than a single loan applicant.

And, noted Summer Greene, general manager of Better Homes and Gardens Florida 1st in Fort Lauderdale, "There is no more cherry-picking which state you can live in because (legal marriage) is fair and nondiscriminating. Life is simpler."

What’s next?

"The next frontier after gay marriage," noted Louisville, KY, gay rights lawyer Bryan Gatewood, is a federal law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.

While the Supreme Court decision made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, just 22 of them and Washington, DC, have laws giving gays and lesbians "a clear right to rent an apartment, eat at a restaurant or keep their jobs," The Seattle Times noted after last week's high court ruling.

U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., are expected to introduce legislation in July offering "comprehensive federal protections" for gays and lesbians. The measure, The Times noted, has slim chances of adoption by a Republican-majority Congress. Still, the paper said: "Prospects were similarly dim" when the gay marriage movement began two decades ago.