Neighborhood guide · Jefferson Parish · 70001 to 70006
Metairie, LA Real Estate
Metairie sits minutes from Uptown but answers to a different parish. That one fact changes your taxes, your permits and your insurance math, and it is the part most buyers find out about too late.
Why the parish line matters here
Metairie is an unincorporated community in Jefferson Parish, and with a 2020 population of 143,507 it is the largest community in the parish. It reads as a continuation of New Orleans when you drive it, and for daily life that is fair. For a real estate transaction it is not. Everything administrative about your purchase routes through Jefferson Parish rather than the City of New Orleans.
Your assessment and homestead exemption go through the Jefferson Parish Assessor, not the Orleans Parish Assessor. Your permits go through Jefferson Parish rather than New Orleans Safety and Permits. Millage rates are set by different bodies, so two houses at the same price on opposite sides of the 17th Street Canal can carry different annual tax bills. We pull the actual parish tax record for any address before you write an offer, because the difference is real money and it is easy to check.
What you are actually buying
Metairie developed mostly across the twentieth century, and the housing stock reflects that. Old Metairie, roughly the 70001 and 70005 ZIPs along the Metairie Road ridge, holds the oldest and most expensive inventory: Colonial Revivals, Craftsman cottages, raised center-hall houses, and a steady flow of custom rebuilds on older lots. Move north and west toward Veterans Memorial Boulevard, West Esplanade and David Drive and you get postwar ranch and midcentury subdivisions on flatter, more uniform lots, plus a genuine supply of townhomes and condominiums that Uptown simply does not have at the same price.
Metairie Road is the oldest road in the area and still functions as Old Metairie’s main street, with the shops and restaurants clustered along it. That walkability is priced in. Bucktown, at the lake end near the 17th Street Canal, trades on proximity to the water and the seafood restaurants rather than on architecture.
Elevation, drainage and insurance
Metairie sits on a drained former marsh behind levees, and its ground elevation varies noticeably between the Metairie Road ridge and the flatter areas north of Airline Highway. That variation is the single biggest driver of what a house costs to insure here. Two properties on the same street can carry very different flood premiums because of a two-foot difference in finished floor elevation.
The document that settles it is the elevation certificate. We ask for it on every Metairie property, and if the seller does not have one we recommend ordering a new one from a licensed surveyor before your inspection period closes. An elevation certificate is also what your insurance agent needs to quote accurately rather than estimate. Flood zone designation itself comes from the FEMA Map Service Center for the specific address.
Old Metairie and exterior changes
Metairie is outside the City of New Orleans, so the Historic District Landmarks Commission has no jurisdiction here. That surprises buyers coming from Uptown or the Garden District, where exterior work routinely goes through HDLC review. Jefferson Parish handles its own zoning and land use, and portions of Old Metairie carry additional parish-level review over things like setbacks, lot coverage and demolition.
Requirements in that overlay have been revised more than once, so we confirm the current rules with Jefferson Parish for the specific address rather than working from what applied a few years ago. If your plan involves an addition, a teardown or a second story, that confirmation should happen before you are under contract, not after.
Comparing Metairie against options inside the city? The best neighborhoods guide lays them side by side, and the cost of buying guide breaks down what you actually need at closing.
Common questions
Metairie, answered
No. Metairie is an unincorporated community in Jefferson Parish, next to New Orleans but not inside it. It has no city government of its own, so parish offices handle assessment, permitting and zoning. The practical effect for a buyer is that your tax bill, your permit process and your school district are all Jefferson Parish, not Orleans.
It depends entirely on which part of each you compare. Old Metairie competes with Uptown on price and sometimes exceeds it, while postwar subdivisions north of Veterans typically come in well below comparable square footage inside the city. Property taxes are calculated on different millage rates, so we compare total monthly cost rather than list price when a client is weighing the two.
Old Metairie is generally 70001 and 70005, along the Metairie Road ridge between Interstate 10 and Airline Highway. Metairie as a whole runs 70001 through 70006. Boundaries for Old Metairie specifically are conventional rather than official, so different sources draw them slightly differently.
Often yes, and the answer is set by the individual address rather than by Metairie generally. Ground elevation here varies by street, and lenders require flood coverage in a Special Flood Hazard Area. We check the address on the FEMA Map Service Center and ask for the existing elevation certificate before we make an offer, because that certificate is what lets an agent quote a real premium instead of a range.
No. HDLC jurisdiction stops at the New Orleans city limits. Jefferson Parish runs its own zoning and land use review, and parts of Old Metairie carry extra parish-level requirements around setbacks, coverage and demolition. We verify what applies to a specific address with the parish before a client commits to a renovation plan.
Metairie is served by the Jefferson Parish School System, the largest public district in Louisiana, along with a well-established set of private and parochial schools. Attendance zones and admissions policies change, so verify current assignment directly with the district or the school for any address you are serious about.
Yes. Mignon Simone is licensed statewide in Louisiana and work Jefferson Parish regularly. Contact us for a consultation.
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