In Spring, Notre Dame condos and townhomes seemed ready to swamp South Bend. Existing units were being rehabbed and flipped, new projects were planned and high-rise buildings were envisioned. The South Bend Tribune reported more than $200 million dollars in projects were planned. After the season, how does it look?

When I look at the volume of closed sales this year for all condos / townhomes within 2.5 miles of the stadium, I can see about $14.5 million in sales spread across about 73 transactions. While this is a far cry from the earlier optimism, it is a healthy amount for the South Bend Area. In fact, the entire sales volume for all residential property in that same 2.5 mile radius is just about $80 million this year, so those condos account for about 18% of sales by volume.

Of the new construction:

Of the existing condos / townhomes, I count the following number of sales this year:

More detailed sales information and condo profiles are available at the Michiana Real Estate Guide.

If I missed any projects, or got something wrong, please let me and the readers know in the comments.

9 Responses

  1. Seems as if the hype of growth has calmed to a slow crawl – albeit possibly a steady crawl.
    Oakhill – nothing more than a college kid apartment in my opinion.
    Stadium Club – ghetto.
    Game Day – I’m not surprised. I never saw that one as a ground breaking contender. Same with Colfax Place – they might have had a fighting chance if they didn’t outrageously price them.
    North Douglas Condos – decent condos especially for the price. Their downfall is location being behind a 7-11 and next to a storage facility.
    Dublin Village – even though this one isn’t mentioned above, I just have to comment on it. Why on earth they sold as well as they did, I’ll never know. They have the worst location ever – literally surrounded by restaurants, gas stations, power lines, and the toll road. Couldn’t get any worse than that!
    Wexford and Irish Crossings – haven’t seen the inside yet but exterior is attractive and location is great too.

  2. I do have some incite into some of the above that may not be reflected in the MLS yet.

    – Wexford sold 7 of 8 with just one unit left which the last I knew they still had some interior finish work to complete, exteriors is all done and the project will be 100% complete. Looks very very nice.

    – Irish Crossings sold more than 12 townhomes so far. According to their just recently updated website, they have 18 fourplexes sold, 6 triplexes sold (plus two firm holds) which haven’t even been framed up yet (so obviously not closed yet). They have the best location and the best construction execution in the area that I have seen…and I have toured them all. They are still putting in more foundations for a total of 51 unit foundations started since April of this year. The first triplex building should be framed in December. Once that is up, I will do a walk through and that may be what I buy, finally. I must also comment that the quality of the construction with woodwork and other details is impressive. Also, it is in the county which has much lower taxes than if it were in the city, which makes a difference these days.

    – North Douglas is nice, but the construction is going slower than I expected and I really would like a garage. If it weren’t for my garage requirement and the fact that I would want one in one of the latter buildings, I would buy one since the price is reasonable and the location is convenient to everything (despite the eye sore of a storage area…plant evergreens I suppose).

    – Stadium Club should have spent more money on the curb appeal and not painted them the awful yellow and blue. Had they done a better finish rehab, they would be more attractive.

    – Stadium Village looks to be DOA despite a foundation and lumber sitting there. Never did get a straight response about it.

    – ND Avenue Townhomes looks like nice plans, not too bad of a price, etc. but looks like initial sales interest has not been what is expected since no construction yet. I do think they will get built, just not on the timeframe they hoped.

    – Dublin Village is nice, but limited appeal outside of the ND community. For an urban type location most out of towners would find the location convenient. The construction is quality, but the location is not for me.

    – Am curious how many of the Waterford Estates condo-hotel units have sold. Nice lounge.

    – Colfax Place was just too pricey for the locale for me.

    – Oak Hill is very apartment like and right now is WAY overpriced (some 50% over priced in my opinion).

    – Eddy Street Commons is so big that it takes a lot of time to get all the details buttoned up. Should be nice….in 2012 though.

    *** Looks like my money is going to Irish Crossings based on the great location, size of the community, quality of construction and finishes, and floorplans (gotta have that attached garage!).

    I’ve toured them all and that’s my review so far.

  3. Meant “insight”. Regardless of the typos, have any units in Stadium Club (formerly College Park) sold as condo units? I see a lot for sale on Realtor.com but really have no interest in stopping in to see them again.

  4. The two developments that are now relevant in my opinion are Irish Crossings (higher end with the best ND location possible) and North Douglas Condos (reasonably priced and convenient overall location).

    – Irish Crossings has started 51 units in 8 months and has closed an average of 1 unit per week since the first unit was finished and closed. Estimated construction and sales will be complete before June 30, 2009 for sure (and possibly even as soon as the end of 2008). The first unit was completed in under 5 months. High end with the best location that will hold up in value as long as the university stays in existence…which it should (even if the football team is in the bottom 10%). 79 units total. I think this will be and will remain a top Notre Dame high end location forever and makes a great legacy second home purchase that can remain in the family for generations to come.

    – North Douglas Condos started two 16 unit foundations in 2006 with the first building completed this fall. Construction was slower than expected….took almost a full year for the first building. The second 16 unit building started to be framed last month I believe. With 11 units sold, that would be about one unit a week too. I didn’t see any signs of a third foundation going in just yet. The clubhouse is decked out nicely (although the planned pool remains just in the plans for now). There are 200+ units planned over two phases. I would suspect that this project will still be in the works in 2010 if not 2012 since 200+ units is a lot. Will always be a convenient location, but could have easily been an apartment complex location instead (the interior finishes and floorplans are not apartment by the way).

    Those really are the two main ND oriented developments that are relevant. The third option, if looking for a single detached home, would be The Cottages of Pendle Woods (not a lot of woods left though) but is a decent location.

  5. Editor’s note:

    I used closed sales for the stats in the above article. There are a number of pending sales and reserved units that I did not count in the sales totals.

    Fred Cooreman, Director of Sales for Irish Crossings, e-mailed me that “As of 11/27/2007 we’ve sold 23 units for approximately $8,000,000 in sales.”

    I believe he is counting pending sales as well as closed transactions.

  6. Ted – Nope, don’t work for Irish Crossings, but have been following all of the local developments since I am in the market to buy one, but didn’t need to buy immediately. I have met with many of the builders and project developers and collected info to make a decision. Should decide within the next 90 days. I guess I am just being really thorough and didn’t want to put my money into something that wasn’t going to fit my needs for the long term. The GameDay Center didn’t make any sense for me, but for out of towners I could see why they would buy (they had successful projects in several other towns too), I liked Wexford too but wanted a bit larger unit. Stadium Village was interesting but in the end nothing is happening and the floorplans were choppy over 4 floors. Pendle Woods was at first getting my attention but am leaning toward an Irish Crossings triplex unit. I had even looked at Ashbury Park and the new villas at Woodbridge. The Eddy Street Commons will be nice but it is ways off and probably will be more pricey. I think I know more than many of the local realtors since I have been looking for over a year and have a good pulse on the market. Just my two cents for whatever it is worth to others. Most of the info is on each of the projects websites too regarding unit sales numbers (esp. Irish Crossings and North Douglas Condos, at least when they actually get updated). Good luck to everyone in the market to buy and don’t be afraid to tour them all, there are enough projects out there still that one should fit your needs.

  7. Editor’s note:

    I heard from Jeffrey W. Brant, with the Notre Dame Avenue Townhomes, who reports “We will have 8 units for sale. All will have full basements. All are two stories above grade. They will have detached garages. We plan to break ground Feb or March of 08. We are in the process of reengineering the plans to be more price competitive in the market place. We plan to be in the $270,000.00 range for the interior units, a little higher for the 2 end units. They are larger units.”

  8. As I stated in my earlier post (which I thought was insightful) I thought the Notre Dame Avenue Townhomes would get built (Brantco has tackled much larger projects before) just not in the timeframe they initially had hoped….I think they were supposed to be done this year or by Feb of 2008. Guessing completion will be Sept-Oct of 2008 now. With the full basements, I did not think the homes were too high of a price, but lower prices won’t hurt unless they get much smaller. Knocking off 20%+ can’t hurt I suppose, but from what I saw online, I did like it and thought the first plans were reasonable and nice. Good luck and look forward to seeing them once they are framed in.

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