A decade ago, if you wanted to find a wealthy neighborhood, you looked for a Whole Foods. They knew that if they stuck a store in a wealthy location they would also find opposition to science, medicine, and agriculture - their ideal customers.
Now things are less clear. A new national study of grocery stores' impacts on nearby home values found the biggest payoff in neighborhoods with a Trader Joe's. The average home value near Trader Joe's is $608,305, compared to $521,142 near Whole Foods. They also sell lots of organic stuff but don't have employees pretending you're bad parents if you don't buy it, so perhaps that is why more wealthy people are going there. Which makes them open more stores which will allow them to sell Two Buck Chuck.
According to ATTOM's 2019 Grocery Store Battle analysis, homes near a Trader Joe's realized an average home seller ROI of 51%, compared to homes near a Whole Foods with an average home seller ROI of 41%.
That does not mean you should rush to buy a home near a Trader Joe's and expect a surge in value. But there are intangibles that go into purchases for people moving up, and proximity of a store may be in the mix.
