Posted on 04/24/2008 9:02:16 AM PDT by Lorianne
Economists say home prices are nowhere near hitting bottom. But even in regions that have taken a beating, some neighborhoods remain practically unscathed. And a pattern is emerging as to which neighborhoods those are.
The ones with short commutes are faring better than places with long drives into the city. Some analysts see a pause in what has long been inexorable — urban sprawl.
The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area has been hit hard. Prices tumbled an average of 11 percent in the past year. That's the big picture. But a look at Ashburn, Va., about 40 miles from the center of town, finds a steeper fall.
At a recent auction of foreclosed homes north of Washington, in the Maryland suburbs, there weren't many takers. All of the addresses are far from downtown, and average commute times are among the highest in the nation.
It's a different story for properties that are closer to the city's center — in areas of Montgomery County that are on the edge of Washington.
"When I have a listing in this neighborhood, there are often 40 to 60 people coming through the open houses," said Pam Ryan-Brye, an agent with Long and Foster Real Estate.
Inside the city, median home prices are actually up 3.5 percent from a year ago.
Jonathan Hill, vice president of Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, which tracks home sales, sat in his office recently, clicking through page after page of price data sorted by ZIP code. There were a lot of negative numbers, but not in places that are close in or near public transit.
The 20912 ZIP code, for example, showed almost a 10 percent increase in average sales price, Hill said.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
urban sprawl gone bad.
I keep reading about how doomed real estate is, but yet every time I check recent sales I see my neighborhood is holding strong from the “top of the bubble” prices we paid in 2006. With a low fixed rate mortgage in the central part of town, even the “worst time to buy” isn’t that bad after all.
I read years ago that this thing starts on the fringes and moves in to the center.
This time it is exacerbated by the hyper-inflation of gas prices.
And yes, it is HYPER-inflation.
Yes, this trend was predicted as much as 15 years ago. It’s now coming to pass.
With fuel prices the way they are and probably getting worse, the exurbs will become the new ‘slums’.
Here is a neighborhood destined to be a real bad place. My wife and I happened on it on a Sunday drive. Miles even from a gas station.
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=47.070531,-122.175436&spn=0.013533,0.043087&t=h&z=15
>>With a low fixed rate mortgage in the central part of town, even the “worst time to buy” isn’t that bad after all.<<
Think of it this way. You own a lot of stock and it is september of 1929. Looks GREAT!
So far...
See my post #6. When my wife and I saw it we said it looked like it would either become a ghost town or a slum. The map does not do it justice. You drive miles in a nice valley and then at the top of this plateau in the middle of nowhere someone built a neighborhood. It’s just surreal.
I live in a nice part of Alexandria, VA. Believe me, the creeping crud of lower real estate prices has finally arrived.
In the past three months, there has been an appreciable change in prices - but many folks are refusing to lower the prices of their homes. That’s just about a guarantee to prolong the length of time that their houses sit and sit.
Mind you, prices aren’t nearly as bad as out in the counties beyond the Beltway, but they ain’t going up.
So in spite of what the left-wingers tell us again and again, the market works exactly the way it’s supposed to work!
> This time it is exacerbated by the hyper-inflation of gas prices.
> And yes, it is HYPER-inflation
Please don’t fall for the MSM’s overdramatization. It’s not “inflation” and it’s by no means “hyper.” It’s just a normal market adjustment to a change in the underlying conditions of supply and demand.
(If you can find a documented case of hyperinflation that occurred without a huge increase in the money supply, please call Milton Friedman right away!)
Still better than renting. Now I have the yard for a vegetable garden if I need it! haha
There’s been a huge increase in the MZM measure of the money supply, but the M0 (physical dollars) in circulation in America is declining.
One of the reasons everyone is scratching their heads is because we’re experiencing symptoms of monetary inflation and deflation at the same time.
That location pasted into #6 does not look too bad so far as being in the boonies is concerned.
Up here in north Ga, subdivisions are typically miles away from everything. I think the nearest station for us is like 4 or 5 miles away. Ditto for grocery stores.
Move them out of the country where they can have a garden and move them into the cities where they can have food stamps.
The increase in gas prices IS hyper-inflation of gas prices. I was just talking about gas, not the general economy. ;)
Same thing is about to happen north of the Mason-Dixon. The southern tier of PA was becoming a bedroom community for DC commuters...now MS-13 is moving in.
Cumming, GA .... does Elvis still hang at the Lantern Inn??
I can’t agree more. Living up in Dawson County and commuting into Cumming to work, I wouldn’t trade my out-of-the-way neighborhood in the farmland and forests for anything in the world.
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