National news would have you believe that home prices are increasing everywhere but that is just not the case. There are areas that are showing appreciation, however if you’ve been in real estate for any length of time you know how location specific sales and price trends can be. I recently did an appraisal in the Clay/Chalkville area of Birmingham, Alabama on a small garden home and found that property values are still way off from where they were at the peak of the market.
The Clay/Chalkville area of Birmingham is located in the northeast area of Jefferson County, between Trussville and Centerpoint. I was interested in seeing what has been happening in the market for garden homes and found the following trends, check out this graph.
You can see a definite downward trend in overall sales prices over this time period. From 2005 to mid year 2008 there were more sales volume and the sales prices were concentrated in the $100,00 to $150,000 range with some activity in the $300,000 range, however from mid year 2008 to the present, the number of sales has declined and the homes in the upper price ranges are absent. This lack of higher priced sales and reduction in volume has contributed to lower average sales prices and the downward trend.
I have noticed that over the past 12 months price trends have leveled off with more of a stable market. When searching for sales in the past year I limited my search to garden homes built between 2000 and 2010, because this is what was most similar to the home I was appraising. There were 27 sales with 14 of the homes being distressed, i.e., short sales or foreclosures. This shows us that foreclosures were an issue in this area this past year and most likely reflect the lower prices shown on the graph. A positive point though is that there are currently about 30 similar homes for sale, with only 4 being distress properties. If this trend continues this should help to raise the average sale price for similar homes.
Do you have any thoughts on the Clay/Chalkville market or any other in the Birmingham, AL area? Leave me a comment below I would like to hear your take.
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