Focus On The Southside

This week we're back around to the Southside in our neighborhood/area updates. For an overview of the neighborhood and the types of properties we are covering, check out my first post on it from way back last year. After last week's short sale post, I think we could all use something a little more upbeat, and there's some good news to share from this part of town.

And the good news is primarily that distressed property sales appear to be declining here in a big way. We have 16 active listings this afternoon, and only 6 are distressed sales (2 REO and 4 short sales). There are only two contingent sales at the moment (1 REO/1 SS).

The decline in distressed listings also carries over to sales activity. We have 7 pending sales in the area today (2 REO/2 SS), and we've had 12 sold units in the past three months (2 REO/2 SS). I've been talking a lot in recent months about how many traditional sellers we've had coming back into the market, and they are all over the Southside these days.

There's even more good news: It appears that home values are beginning to edge back up here. When I reported on this area back in May, I reported that it looked like we'd been seeing some signs of appreciation here. And when I compare the last three months here to the previously three month period, that trend appears to be holding. We've seen about an 8% increase in median prices and a very slight increase in price per square foot. Again, when we're working with volume as low as this, it's hard to really hang your hat on that data. But it looks promising.

Next week I'm going to do a recap of some of the data from our Foreclosure Avoidance Seminar that we held a couple of weeks ago. It was well received, so we wanted to try to get some of the information out to more people. So come back for that, and please forward a link to anyone who might benefit from it as well.