Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Are there too many homes for sale?


As we walk the neighborhood, we can't help but notice the number of houses for sale in the village. They seem to be growing faster than the weeds in some yards around here. I did a quick search of the MLS on the Keller Williams website returned 19 homes for sale within Birkdale Village. That seems like a lot - It's actually about 5% of the homes in the village (there are 400 homes in just the village in case you are curious). Many people are probably trying to lock in their solid real estate appreciation gains of the past year or two. I'm thinking the village has experienced a 12-20% increase in property values in the past year. So I wonder if this is just the time of the year that everyone plans to move as school gets out and everything looks its best as the flowers and tress blossom.
I remember thinking last spring that there were many homes for sale and they all sold. I'm thinking that if between now and June we clear this backlog of homes then property values will spurt up again. If these houses sit for a while then we have probably reach a plateau while the rest of the surrounding area catches up.
Another concern that I have is the number of investors that seem to be buying homes in Birkdale to rent them out. I think that this drives up values in the sort term but at some point all of those investors have to get out as well. But I also know that most landlords in the village also live in another village home so that goes a long way towards ensuring that the landlords care about the community.
I also know that there seems to be many people moving here. In fact, have a family member and a friend both moving to Birkdale Village before June 1st - there goes 10% of the available housing stock. It seems that whole clusters of families are moving south together.
Well, I'll write more about this topic as it develops. I'm hopeful that Birkdale will continue to appreciate and remain the vibrant place that it currently is.

Cool Slide Show Addition

So tonight I added a cool slide show to the right side of this page. I found it on slide.com. It looks pretty cool and it displays pictures of the Birkdale area. Its too bad that I can't figure out how to save the pictures from the slide show to my computer. This slide show also has pictures of Exit 23's Presbyterian Hospital and Rosedale shooping center. Ah, well, they look good too. If you go to the link then you can also view slide presentations of other interesting areas in Birkdale.