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Since we’ve started tracking condos and townhomes in the Notre Dame / South Bend / Mishawaka area, there have been quite a few new developments announced. A few are complete, a few are scrapped and most are underway. Here’s my first attempt to track them. If I’ve left any off, please mention them in the comments and I’ll try to come up with a comprehensive list.

announced or proposed but never built

• Game Day - Proposed as the tallest building in South Bend. The site has since been earmarked for a standard hotel.
• Colfax Place - Holladay’s high priced downtown condos that never made it past the model stage though a sales banner still hangs from the building.
• Main Street Condos - The top few floors of the JMS building, it never got past an entry in the mls from what I can tell.
• Juniper Knolls - This townhome project at Juniper and Cleveland couldn’t get approval from the County Council

in progress

• Irish Crossings - These high end units are being built more rapidly than the others in the area and seem to be selling well with 4 closings to date this year.
• North Douglas condos - One building is complete, and about 3/4 sold. The builder reports the second building will be ready this summer.
• Keenan Court - The first closing took place recently, and the first building seems to be done.
• Stadium Village - scaled back to two buildings, but under construction
• Eddy Street Commons - Grants have been given for the earth moving in this slow moving project.
• Townes at Kamm Island - Mishawaka’s south of the river condos have a beautiful model unit.
• Riverwalk Townhomes - Masons are currently at work on these north of the river condos in Mishawaka.
• Stonebridge at Edison Lakes - These are in a tucked away location that many people won’t find, but  are following a franchised model that has been successful in other cities.

completed

• Wexford Place - successful 8-unit complex
• Waterford - I believe the renovations are complete in this condo-hotel at the site of the former Ramada on 933 in Roseland. The condo-hotel concept is not readily accepted in South Bend, but they have sold some units, and have recently listed others in the mls.

unclear status at this time

• Notre Dame Avenue Townhomes - I’m not certain the status of these, it currently seems to be an abandoned project.
• Legacy Village - proposed project on Ironwood, not wanted by the neighbors, but not officially rejected
• Stadium Club - The former College Park Apartments, a few of the units are apparently still available as condos, but watch for this to convert fully back to apartments at some point.

For more information about the Notre Dame / South Bend / Mishawaka condos, review the South Bend Area Blog’s articles tagged condo, visit the South Bend Condo Profiles, or hop over to Notre Dame Pads.

Granger, Indiana doesn’t get much discussion on the web’s real estate boards but it did get an interesting question recently on Trulia:

What is the average percent paid for homes sold in Covington shores, and fox chase - on the water?

This is obviously someone who is smart about real estate and is doing their research before they make any large financial decisions. But they are being drawn into a common trap - thinking of sales in relation to list price rather than to inherent value.

But, there are two flaws with that way of valuing homes. The first is that list prices are arbitrary - there is nothing to prevent someone with a $500,000 home from listing it for sale for $900,000. Likewise there is nothing to keep you from under pricing a home and asking $300,000 for that same $500,000 house. Using list price as a guide assumes the list price is founded on something solid, and that’s often not the case.

The second reason it’s dangerous to use percent of list price as a benchmark is that list prices change. Every time you see a “price reduced” advertisement that’s a change to the list price. And, because it’s easier to query, most statistics you’ll see for sale price as a percent of list price are the sale price relative to the list price at the time of sale. A bit of reflection will show you that of course the house will sell for near list price once the price has been reduced closer to an amount at which the house will sell.

If you still want to see the percent of list price paid for homes, compare it to the original price, and take it with a grain of salt.

If you’re buying, base your offer on fundamentals and comparable recent sales, not the asking price.

If you’re selling, realize that you won’t be able to game the system with an artificially high list price and expect to set that as the benchmark for negotiations. Buyers won’t even look at your house. Put your energy into making your home look as good as it can and getting it in front of as many people as you can for the best result.

Here’s the breakdown of sales this year in Covington Shores, on the water: 

Though still unpolished, realst8.com’s new mls search is live. It offers the ability to search for properties in the South Bend Area by address, mls #, price, features, zip code, or Google map, and is a major improvement over the “stock” mls searches that all Realtors can provide through the local association of Realtors. It has better photo displays than Realtor.com too.

Better, you never need to register and we won’t bother you with unwanted calls and e-mails. If all you want is to search on your own, we’re happy to make that possible. If you want prompt, professional assistance by someone who will vigorously represent your interests when buying or selling a property we’re here when you contact us.

I’m a fan of Google Maps and Google Earth. I like their programmer’s interface and innovations. I would like to see their Street View feature come to South Bend sooner rather than later.

But I like crisp updated imagery more than any company. I like maps that layer information for me and in which navigation is a joy. Unfortunately no online map does everything I need, but one map currently has better and more updated imagery for the South Bend Area than the rest - scan the images below and I bet you’ll agree with me.

These images are screen captures from the major online mapping programs. They are of the same location, now the site of North Douglas Condos completed building #1 and clubhouse. Most seem to use the same imagery, but one far surpasses the rest.

Though I use Google Maps for directions and everyday mapping, and macoggis for parcel searches, I’m now going to use Microsoft’s Bird’s Eye View for the most current satellite imagery of the area.

Google Maps:

Google Earth:

maccogis GIS:

Yahoo Maps:

Microsoft Live 2D map:

Microsoft Live 2D Bird’s Eye View:

Microsoft Live 3D: