2010 St. Louis Real Estate Overview

4230 Olive in the Central West End's Gaslight District
$410,000
3 bedrooms with a main floor master bedroom, 2.5 baths, attached garage, open kitchen
Won Best Home and Best Design in City Rama six years ago, once again available for purchase!

Real estate in St. Louis took an interesting turn this past year. Having been in the business of selling real estate for the last 23 years, I'm astounded, now at this holiday season, to once again see the market I last saw 14 years ago in South St. Louis. The market at that time "died" around the holiday season. It was a Buyers Market. We appear to have once again become a Buyers Market, no longer on a cusp, teetering back and forth.

And all of that is logical. The city of St. Louis is a city of Neighborhoods: north, south, midtown, downtown: Soulard, Benton Park, St. Louis Hills, Hyde Park, Central West End, just to name a few. During this economic downturn, the hardest hit areas were north and south. Midtown held its own because of its close proximity to Barnes Hospital complex (our largest employer), Washington University and its Medical School and St. Louis University. At one time, students, interns, residents, doctors at one time still found it a wise idea to purchase a home in near the hospital and the bio-corridor. Today, we are seeing many more folks looking for rental property. Waiting until the future shows a more favorable arena for purchase and profit.

When the Buyers market of 14 years ago first began, the quiet family neighborhoods of south St. Louis, including St. Louis Hills and the Southwest Garden Neighborhoods as well as Lindenwood Park were "discovered" by the rest of the metropolitan area. I overheard in a prestigious Ladue office, two agents talking about St. Louis Southwest Gardens being "THE" place to find property for buyers. And indeed the race was on. Property was fought after with multiple contracts. We often remarked that you could sell a "one bedroom" home back then just as easily as a three bedroom home. Everyone wanted to buy. Interest rates didn't matter. We had to buy a house back then. And we fought over them and home prices rose, and rose and rose. I wondered where the top was.

When the market began to fall, not only north St. Louis city but also south St. Louis city took a deep tumble. Prices fell. No one bought.

Well, as the Central West End held on and maintained, and has now turned more toward rental, the good news is that South St. Louis is coming back. As it did 14 years ago, I believe that South St. Louis will again lead the way into the St. Louis revival of the real estate market. Things are looking up. I am very optimistic about the future St. Louis real estate market. As the coasts are beginning to recover, I think we are going to see a spring market that will rebound.

Real estate is still your best investment. And NOW is the time to buy. Make 2011 YOUR year for investing your money wisely as a buffer for the future.

What Have I Seen

2253 Klemm

I was out showing houses today and ran across a house for which someone thought they had a bright idea. Nicely done. Old historic. Kept most of the old woodwork and baseboards. Nice layout and floorplan. Did the old painted basement floor to make it look cleaner. But, the master bedroom was turned into a suite by adding a master bath --- up a couple of steps and behind it. And that's alright. I can understand the need to run plumbing under the floor to add the bath. But, someone didn't think out the location very well.





The bath is located behind the wall on which the bed is located and above the bed is the heating/a/c vent. Well, on the other side of this wall is the shower and above the shower is another vent for heating/a/c.





Well, it reminds me of other multi-families that I've seen where the owners thought they would put a/c in one unit but not in both. So, they put the a/c in the second floor and not the first. Well, when the a/c is turned on, the cool air goes up and makes the downstairs walls sweat, causing wet walls on the first floor. Same thing happens when the tenant on the first floor doesn't turn on their a/c but the upstairs folks do.





I've seen lots of attempts to make property updated. In one house, there was a carport to the left of the home. Well, when you went into the basment of this ranch style home, the owner had opened a hole through the foundation wall to get under the carport so they could make a space to have more storage. They dug out under the carport slab. Only problem now is that you've got a foundation wall with a hole in it - compromising the strength of that wall.





How about the house with the master bedroom on the second floor and the whole floor turned into a master bedroom suite -- with a bathroom. But, the only problem is the bath room had no walls. The bathroom was up two steps (running plumbing underneath it), and the tub, vanity and toilet were in full view of the bed! No matter how much you love someone, that's a little much.





How about the home with the waste stack replaced with plastic and held together with duct tape?





Or how about the home with the indoor swimming pool off of the kitchen and a deck on top of it. Not only was the moisture affecting the ceiling/floor of the deck so that the deck was saggin inward but also, the pool room and the kitchen all had mold everywhere. Too much moisture and not enough venting. And...a pool off of your kitchen.





Or how about the house with a chunk of the basement foundation cut out, and moss growing up the backyard wall all the way up to the roof? on the brick and in the tuckpointing.





I guess the premise behind this blog is that I've seen EVERYTHING and if you are thinking of buying a home, condo, investment property, don't think you know it all. Have a building inspection done and not just a general building inspection, have every kind of inspection done you can think of that might apply: termite, radon, lateral sewer are most common, but there are also structural engineers, lead paint, mold, septic and well water, to name just a few more of many. Don't get caught with a home that will cost you lots of dollars in the future.

Today's Real Estate Market

224 N. Newstead in the Central West End

Lots of people ask me just how the real estate market is doing. Most expect me to say that I've put my house up for sale and I'm moving out of the city to some small island where I can start a career in sea shell selling to small beach shops. Not true. Although the idea of warm weather in the middle of January is most tempting!

2009 proved to be the best real estate year this company has ever seen! A surprise to most people. What has driven our business this past year? Several things:



Because of the number of foreclosurs and short sales, there are a large number of wonderful homes at extremely good prices out there and the investor is having a field day! There are truly some wonderful bargains to be had and many folks are taking advantage of that. What does an investor want with all of these homes? Rental and rehab. All of which spell money in their pockets. Investment is about 40% of our business right now.



The second purchaser is the first time home buyer. Because of the extension in the $8,000 tax credit, the first time buyer who was not able to purchase last year has until April 30 to write a contract this year. About 40% of our business last year was the first time buyer. Anxious to take advantage of the credit, the months of October and November were crazy with buyers trying to just find a house before the deadline. I'm sure this March and April will prove to be the same.



And 20% of our business was the regular, normal buyer. Now our office is located in the heart of the city of St. Louis, right in between our largest employer, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and two large university's, St. Louis University and Washington University ( and both of their Medical Schools), and so we have a steady stream of students and professors who are looking to move close to work/school. With the Central West End being the most densely populated area of the city, we are usually very busy.



I'm interested to discover what will happen after April 30. With spring/summer normally being pretty busy in real estate, if the economy is to get back on its feet, on its own, without the falseness of government infused help, we will see a normal pick up of buyers and sellers after April 30. If the real estate market is only busy because of the false economic push of the tax credit, the market will take a dramatic slowdown after the deadline. I'm hoping the market continues to grow.



Now St. Louis has never truly been hit very hard by the downturn. Our city had its slowdown and markets fell off a cliff, but on the whole, the markets are coming back very nicely. The average sale price is lower than it was, but that's to be expected. I see St. Louis returning to a normal market again within five years.



Thank you for your past, present and future business. We love to sell St. Louis!