Changes Coming to All Around KTown

Due to some upcoming changes here at All Around KTown, your regularly scheduled weekly poll will not be up tonight. But don't fret - it will be back soon and it will be better than ever!

Intrigued? Well then make sure you don't miss out on any of the exciting stuff that's about to happen - subscribe to AAKT in a feed reader or by email today!

A New Housing Alternative?

Via Calculated Risk, from cartoonist Eric G. Lewis.

What's Your House Sign?

Because I work for a Coldwell Banker franchise, I regularly get Coldwell Banker spam promotional emails. I ususally automatically delete these, but for some reason I actually opened the one I got yesterday.

It was an announcement for a new little widget called Housetrology, which claims to tap into your emotional instincts to help you find your perfect home. All you do is look at some pictures and answer a few questions about things you like, and this quiz will tell you what your ideal house style is and direct you to homes in your search area that match it.

And because CB is trying to get hip to the times, you can also add it to your Facebook page. Really.

I have to admit it's sort of fun, if not entirely accurate. It told me I'm an urbanist, which I think was mostly due to me saying I like the house on the Cosby Show more than the house on Dynasty or the one on Desperate Housewives. Go figure.

So, if you're casting around for something to do besides work on a Friday, head over and see what your house sign is and then come back here and let me know.

Knoxville Foreclosure Watch

Whatcha doin' Watchers? This week on Foreclosure Watch, active and pending listings, as well as closed sales, are all slightly down. As for our strange data blips from last week, the average sales price is on its way back down after last week's unexpected spike, but new active listings continue their downward trend with only 15 new foreclosure listings this week vs 26 last week. Again, it's too early to call this a trend, but I'm still going to be keeping my eye on it.

In other news, 37917 overtook 37914 as the zip code with the most new foreclosure listings since I started keeping count and 37909 made it's very first showing with 1 new foreclosure listing this week. Should I make up prize ribbons?

Now for the breakdown:

Knox County Foreclosure Property Statistics as of 8/06/08 *

Current On-Market Listings - 146 ▼
Average Asking Price: $139,817 ▲
Median Asking Price: $89,900 ▲
Most Expensive New Listing: $585,500 (4 BR, 3 1/2 BA, approx 4000 sq ft on 5+ acres in Powell)
Least Expensive New Listing: $29,900 (2 BR, 1 BA, 800+ sq ft off of Campbell Station Rd.)

Notable New Listings:
North: $94,900 (3 BR, 2 BA, 1900+ sq ft in Fairmont Park)
South: $90,000 (4 BR, 3 BA, 2000+ sq ft in Lake Forest)
East: $33,000 (2 BR, 1 BA, 1000+ sq ft off of Chestnut)
West: $379,000 (5 BR, 4 BA, approx 4500 sq ft in Cavet Station)

Current Pending Sales -103 ▼
Average Asking Price - $87,916▲
Median Asking Price - $74,900 ▬

Closed Sales July 30, 2008-August 5, 2008 - 11 ▼
Average Asking Price - $108,118 ▼
Average Sales Price - $99,450 ▼
Median Sales Price - $88,500 ▼
Average Days on Market - 76 ▲

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 8/06/08 for Knox County single family residential properties only, and does not include condos or PUDS.













As always, if you need more information on any of these properties, just drop me a line.

If you'd like to receive new foreclosure listings automatically, send me an email with "Foreclosure List" in the subject line, and I'll do the rest. As an added bonus, I promise never to spam you.

Why take the chance of ever missing out on Foreclosure Watch? Make sure you get all your foreclosure goodness every week by subscribing to All Around K-Town today, either by RSS or email!

Another Cool Tool: Neighborhood Watch

Remember me telling you not too long ago that real estate agents aren't allowed to tell clients if a neighborhood is "good " or "bad"? Yeah, well we're still not allowed to do that, but it looks like home buyers may have a new tool to use to get that information themselves. It's a website I just found out about from The Real Estate Bloggers called Criminal Searches that allows you to look up pretty much anyone's criminal history for free. Really.

But that's not all. The cool part about the site for homeowners and home buyers is the "Neighborhood Watch" feature, which allows you to enter a zip code, city, or address and then shows you offenders by type of crime on a Google map of the search area -

You can also click on each person and pull up detailed information on what their exact offense or offenses were and when they were committed.

I took at look at my neighborhood and found that there were more traffic offenders than anything, although there were a few folks with multiple drug offenses.

The site says that it pulls its info from public records and stresses that, because the data includes civil and traffic filings, not everyone that turns up in neighborhood search results is a "criminal" per se.

While it certainly is not a foolproof way to identify "good" or "bad" neighborhoods, it is certainly a helpful tool to use to check out areas you are unsure about.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Neighborhood of the Week: Lincoln Park

This week Neighborhood of the Week heads back to the north side of town, a little ways up from downtown, but not quite all the way to Fountain City, to a small historic community known as Lincoln Park.

Lincoln Park is located just north of the Old North Knoxville and Fourth and Gill neighborhoods and is roughly bounded by Sharps Ridge to the north, Atlantic Avenue to the south, Broadway to the east, and I-275 to the west. It is very often lumped in with the neighboring community of Oakwood, and in fact there is a joint Oakwood Lincoln Park Neighborhood Association. From that association's web page:

The Lincoln Park community began as a mineral spring resort in 1899 and was probably named for the large Lincoln Park in Chicago. The original Lincoln Park school was located at Atlantic and Kenyon Aves. There were three mineral springs, Epsom, Lithia, and Chalybeate, located where the Lincoln Park Elementary School later stood. An early photograph shows a building with porches on at least three sides with a sign above saying, “Lincoln Park Mineral Springs.” The springs were enclosed so that people had to buy the water and much later were capped. The first school building was erected near the springs by Knox County. The dummy railroad line, which served the neighborhood, became part of the city’s trolley system, following annexation in 1917. Lincoln Park became a part of the city of Knoxville in 1917 along with Oakwood and several other neighborhoods.

The joint Oakwood/Lincoln Park neighborhood association is very active and even has its own clubhouse where neighborhood meetings are held and which residents can rent out for special events.

The homes in Lincoln Park have a lot of character. Many date from at or near the turn of the century and several have architectural characteristics of Victorian and Craftsman style homes. And even though it is a historic neighborhood, Lincoln Park is still quite affordable, especially compared to Old North Knox or Fourth and Gill.

So if you're looking for a charming, historic, and affordable neighborhood with a strong sense of community that is also convenient to downtown and UT, you might not have to look any further than Lincoln Park.

Note: The stats for this NOTW are only for Lincoln Park. I will be covering Oakwood in a future installment.

Here's Lincoln Park by the numbers -

Lincoln Park*

Current On-Market Listings - 7
Average Asking Price: $95,729
Median Asking Price: $89,900
Most Expensive: $115,000 (3 BR, 2 BA, approx 1300 sq ft home built in 1899)
Least Expensive: $79,500 (2 BR, 1 BA, 1100+ sq ft home built in 1930)
Middle of the Road: $89,900 (2 BR, 1 BA, 1100+ sq ft home built in 1899 )

Current Pending Sales - 3
Average Asking Price: $83,900
Median Asking Price: $99,900

Closed Sales - Jan 2008 - June 30 2008- 15
Average Asking Price - $71,627
Average Sales Price - $69,580
Median Sales Price - $65,000
Average Days on Market - 85

Closed Sales - Jan 2007 - June 30 2007- 14
Asking Price - $73,764
Average Sales Price - $71,193
Median Sales Price - $79,703
Days on Market - 72

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 8/04/08 does not include condos, PUDS, adjacent neighborhoods or multi-family units.

As always, if you want any more information about any of these properties, or if you'd like to check one of them out in person, just give me a shout.

If you would like to receive a full list of properties for sale in this neighborhood, or if you would like to be notified of new listings, send me an email with either "Current Lincoln Park Listings" or "New Lincoln Park Listings" in the subject line and I'll take care of the rest. Spam belongs in a can, not in your email inbox.

Feeling left out because your neighborhood hasn't yet been featured as a Neighborhood of the Week? Don't keep it to yourself, let me know all about it.

The Weekly Poll

Early voting is open for this week's poll. You can find your closest polling station in the upper left hand corner of the page.

This week's topic is the new Housing Rescue Bill that was just signed into law. I wrote about it earlier this week and now it's your turn to weigh in on what you think about it. Good, bad, or indifferent, let me know your opinion by casting your vote.

And even though they may have differing opinions about it, All Around KTown subscribers always have the latest information on local and national real estate. Don't be left out - subscribe to AAKT in a feed reader or by email today!

More Cool Homes You Can't Afford

The weekend is almost here and I thought it would be a good time to take another stroll through the MLS and drool over homes that shall never, ever be mine. Care to join me?

First up is this nice little horse farm on East Emory Rd between Halls and Corryton. The 4 BR, 4 full bath, 2 half bath home is located on just shy of 60s acres and features not one, but 3 barns, a gated entry, and a year round creek. Asking price: $2,950,000

Next up is a 5 BR, 5 full bath, 3 half bath, 8800 sq ft+ estate on 18 acres right off of Duncan Road in West Knoxville. Features include media room, outdoor terraces and living area, vanishing edge pool, 4 car attached garage, and 5 car detached garage. Asking price: $3,895,000

Not too far down the road is this 10,000+ sq ft spread in Sherwood Oaks. Features include walnut paneled office with fireplace and built-in bookshelves, gourmet kitchen upstairs and 2nd kitchen downstairs, workout room, and large outdoor patio with fireplace. Asking price: $1,849,900

Finally, there's the house that Regas and Grady's built. This contemporary rancher in Farragut might be on the small side, but it's sitting on over 3 acres of lakefront property and includes a 300 foot lakeside walkway and 2 boat houses with lifts and floating docks. Asking price: $1,695,000

Well, that's all the day dreaming I have time for now. Time to get back out and show people some cool houses they actually can afford. Have a great weekend!

Link Round-Up: Housing Rescue Bill Edition

OK, so by now you know there's this new "Housing Rescue Bill" and that it just got signed into law. It has a lot of provisions that have raised a lot of questions and caused a lot of mixed opinions.

Some people think it's good,

some people think it's bad,

some people think it's good and bad,

some people think it's only a temporary fix,

and one person thinks it's a lot like an episode of "Mad Men."

What do you think?

Knoxville Foreclosure Watch

It hardly seems like it can be Foreclosure Watch time again, but time does have a tendency to fly when you're working in this crazy real estate market. This week on Foreclosure Watch, while actives, pendings and closings stay somewhat steady, I did notice two strange blips in the data.

1. The average sales price for closed foreclosures more than doubled.
This is partially due to one very big six figure sale, but even if you remove the big one from the equation, the average sales price would still be in the $120s - way higher than last week's average of around $88,000. So what gives? Is it just a fluke or are more buyers starting to look for bargains in the upper bracket of the foreclosure market? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

2. There were only about 1/2 has many new foreclosure listings this week as there were the previous two weeks.
Again, no idea if this is a fluke or a trend, but you can bet I'll be keeping an eye on it in coming weeks.

Now for the breakdown:

Knox County Foreclosure Property Statistics as of 7/30/08 *

Current On-Market Listings - 150 ▼
Average Asking Price: $136,451 ▲
Median Asking Price: $88,900 ▼
Most Expensive New Listing: $499,900 (7 BR, 4 1/2 BA, 4900+ sq ft in Andover Place in Farragut)
Least Expensive New Listing: $16,150 (1 BR, 1 BA, 700+ sq ft in East Knoxville)

Notable New Listings:
North: $180,000 (4 BR, 2 1/2 BA, 2400+ sq ft in Corryton)
South: $90,900 (3 BR, 2 BA, 1100+ sq ft off of Sevierville Pike)
East: $39,900 (3 BR, 1 1/2 BA 1300+ sq ft off of Biddle St.)
West: $120,000 (4 BR, 3 BA, approx 2600 sq ft in Lakeshire)

Current Pending Sales -105 ▬
Average Asking Price - $87,444▼
Median Asking Price - $74,900▼

Closed Sales July 23, 2008-July 29, 2008 - 12 ▼
Average Asking Price - $174,442▲(way, way up)
Average Sales Price - $164,383▲
Median Sales Price - $135,600 ▲
Average Days on Market - 69 ▲


*Data taken from KAARMLS on 7/30/08 for Knox County single family residential properties only, and does not include condos or PUDS.

As always, if you need more information on any of these properties, just drop me a line.

If you'd like to receive new foreclosure listings automatically, send me an email with "Foreclosure List" in the subject line, and I'll do the rest. Spam is for losers.

Why take the chance of ever missing out on Foreclosure Watch? Make sure you get all your foreclosure goodness every week by subscribing to All Around K-Town today, either by RSS or email!