Month over month things look much better – sales are up 23%. Year over year things look much worse – sales are down 35%.

April 2009 saw 219 closed sales through the South Bend Area MLS and $21.04 million in sales volume. That is markedly higher than this year’s earlier sales numbers, but only about 65% of April 2008’s $32.45 million in sales. It is also roughly half of 2007’s $42.74 million in sales.

Sales continued at the lower price segments of the market:
57 sales closed under $25,000 this month. Previous year’s Aprils closed 43 (2006), 53 (2007) and 60 (2008) sales under $25,000.

This month’s high price sales were $550,000 for a 93 acre Lakeville farm with 2 houses and mulitple buildings.

More typically, the higher price sales included a $520,000 sale in Woodland Hills and 5 sales in Granger and South Bend between $290k and $410k.

The lowest price sale was $6,600. There were 15 cash sales at or below $10,000. 

 

It was a rough month for Notre Dame condos. The North Douglas condos seem to be headed for a sale and conversion to apartments. There were only two sales that could be considered Notre Dame condos. One at the North Shore Club, a 1,210 square foot 2 bedroom for $90,000. The second wasn’t properly a condo, but a Pendle Woods villa (free-standing like a house, but with a HOA that includes lawn care like a condo) for $292,900. Construction continues at the newNotre Dame condo projects: Irish Crossings, Stadium Village, Ivy Quad and Eddy Commons.

Here’s the scatter graph for all the sales prices at a glance. 

And a breakdown of how the purchases were financed. Cash is king, but FHA is on the rise. Sellers, that matters because FHA loans come with more rules. There are guidelines and regulations that could force further inspections, repairs and appraisals. In these cases, you can participate or risk your buyer losing their loan and you losing the sale. Rehabbers who are selling after holding a property less than six months need to be especially aware of this. 

And the long term graph.

That’s the best and most current public report you’ll find on South Bend real estate. If you need more info, an analysis of a niche market, or professional assistance buying or selling property in the South Bend Area, contact a realst8.com agent.

7 Responses

  1. We just sold our home and closed on 4/30. We placed our Cross Creek house on the market February 21 and it went pending around March 6. We listed at $159K and sold for $153K with no concessions.

  2. I have to agree with Anon Alum that this info is really top notch Nick. I hope to buy in SB one day near ND and this type of information is of the utmost value to anyone interested in RE values and trends in SB.

    Keep up the great work!

    Dean, it just goes to show that a properly priced property will sell in ANY market. Congrats.

  3. Nick, Thank you very much for putting these reports together. It’s nice to see the actual numbers and not just rely on what the economists & NAR predict and report.

  4. MikeNJ, We priced it to sell and sold it for $10K less than we bought it for in May 2007. Based on the info Nick has put together, I think selling this year instead of next was a pretty smart move. I guess I’ll know for sure next year at this time.

  5. With the May 2009 sales stats coming soon (I hope…..keep up the great work Nick!), perhaps it is time for an update on the ND projects, both proposed and under construction. Which projects never got off the ground…..there was one big project at the end of ND Ave around where is turns sharply that never got started, another smaller one of about 8 units that cleared the lot on ND Ave in a pretty run down area (can’t remember the name), Stadium Club went apartment….again, ND condos going apartment?, etc. etc. etc. A lot of big plans but few came to be. How is Eddy Street Commons doing………predict slow sales and fairly dead year round w.r.t. residents. The one condo-hotel still have rooms waiting for people to “buy”…how many left? With St. Joseph County unemployment pretty darn high spiking to 11.5% in March (worse now) competing with Elkhart County’s 18.8% (worse now), is the St. Joseph County real estate market collapsing into a real estate depression (both residential and commercial (empty stores and office space)) or are the green shoots out there (or as Roubini states, yellow weeds)? What is the pulse, if there is one?

  6. I bet the May numbers are brutal. I’ve been tracking the listings in a few subdivisions of interest and nothing has been selling.

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