Here’s one Forbes list I’m glad Knoxille didn’t make it onto: America’s 10 Riskiest Real Estate Markets. The 10 unfortunate winners are:

1. Detroit, MI
2. Orlando, FL
3. Cleveland, OH
4. St. Louis, MO
5. Miami, FL
6. Las Vegas, NV
7. Sacramento, CA
8. Denver, CO
9. Tampa, FL
10. Phoenix, AZ

How risky are these markets? This quote from Forbes.com says it all:

There’s roulette and there’s skydiving. Then there’s investing in Detroit and Cleveland real estate.

Ouch.

Repeat after me: there’s no place like Knoxville!

So far, NOTW has showcased Sequoyah Hills and Lakemoor Hills. In keeping with the “Hills” theme (no connection to Heidi or Spencer, I promise), this week’s neighborhood of the week is the east side “Hills” neighborhood, Holston Hills.

The Knox Heritage website has some nice info on the history of Holston Hills:

One of the best-kept secrets in Knoxville, Holston Hills is named for the river that borders the neighborhood on the south and east . . . Holston Hills dates from the mid-1920s, when part of the neighborhood was developed in connection with the establishment of the Holston Hills Country Club. A group of Knoxville area businessmen who wanted Knoxville to have a top-caliber golf course formed a corporation called Holston Hills, Inc. in 1926 and purchased the 180-acre McDonald farm along the Holston River. The Country Club was built and memberships to the club cost $1,000, including a free home site. The club house was designed by Knoxville architect Charles Barber of Barber & McMurry in 1927 and the golf course was designed and laid out by Donald Ross in 1928. Ross is regarded as among the finest golf course architects in the world.

Many opulent homes were built during the 1920s, but following the stock market crash of 1929 smaller cottage-style homes were built, many of stone and brick. The depression and World War II stopped further housing development, but in the post-war housing boom a number of ranch-style homes were built around the traditional 2-story stone and brick homes of the original development. Holston Hills was included in a major annexation into the city of Knoxville in 1962, which took 12,871 residents.

Take a look at the Knox Heritage website, which includes the full brochure from the ‘05 Trolley Tour of Holston Hills, from which the above information was taken. The brochure has more detailed information on individual homes in Holston Hills, and could easily be used to recreate that tour in your own vehicle one fine spring afternoon.

Holston Hills*

Current On-Market Listings - 16
Average Asking Price: $201,600
Median Asking Price: $182,400
Average Square Footage: 2333
Most Expensive Listing: $359,900 (3 BR, 3 BA, approx 3300 sq ft)
Least Expensive Listing: $109,900 (3 BR, 1 BA, approx 1900 sq ft)

Current Pending Sales -2
Average Asking Price - $173,500
Median Asking Price - NA

Closed Sales - March 2007 - 5
Average Sales Price - $198,300
Median Sales Price - $161,500
Average Days on Market - 95

Closed Sales - February 2008 - 4
Average Sales Price - $135,425
Median Sales Price - $134,400
Average Days on Market - 105

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 3/31/08 for Holston Hills proper, and does not include adjacent subdivisions, condos or PUDS.

I will update the closings for ‘08 if any more latecomers get entered in this evening or tomorrow.

If you want any more information about any of these properties, just give me a shout.

I’m almost out of “Hills.” What neighborhood would you like to see here next week?

Question of the Week is coming! All Around K-Town needs to know what you need to know about the Knoxville real estate market, home buying or selling, or anything else real estatish. Don’t be shy, just drop me a line.

This week’s poll is up. Please to enjoy to your left over there.

And yes, I’m totally phoning it in this weekend.

What’s with Knoxville and lists? Not only did we make all those Forbes lists, K-Town was just named one of 12 solar cities. According to WBIR.com:

The city of Knoxville is one of a dozen cities nationwide receiving federal money to boost solar power use.

It was selected as a Solar America City by the Department of Energy.The designation means a $200,000 grant plus technical assistance.The Tennessee Valley authority plans to chip in an additional $100,000 over the course of the two-year project.

Show some K-Town love by subscribing to All Around K-Town - c’mon, you know you wanna!

I wanted to make a really bad pun about blog traffic here, but this new traffic blog deserves better. Don Jacobs’ Navigating SmartFIX40 blog is up and ready to help you navigate your way through “the most expensive highway project in the state’s history.” Jacobs says:

On May 1, the downtown section of Interstate 40 will be closed, forcing out-of-town drivers onto designated detour routes, and providing residents an opportunity to find new ways to get to work, shop and frolic.

Just saw this story over on KNS:

Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputies serving an arrest warrant Wednesday night uncovered a methamphetamine lab in a West Knox County subdivision, authorities said.

Deputies from the KCSO Narcotics Unit arrived at the home, 830 Kevin Road, in the Crestwood Hills subdivision off Walker Springs Road around 5 p.m. after getting a tip from a local neighborhood watch member, KCSO Assistant Chief Deputy Robert Sexton said.

Yikes. As if that weren’t bad enough, one of the comments on the story was making fun of this happening in “toney [sic] west knox.”

You see, that kind of makes me nuts.

The scary part about this story is not that the meth lab was discovered in West Knoxville, but that it was discovered in a nice, quiet, well-populated subdivision at all.

The question to ask is not how could this happen in West Knoxville, but could this possibly be happening in any other otherwise respectable neighborhoods, be they North, South, East or West?

Have a question about Knoxville real estate or real estate in general? Lucky you, because you can now send your questions directly to me and I will try my darndest to answer at least one each week. So what are you waiting for? Fire away!

I’m a little upset. I just found out that my generation is responsible for more than the gratuitous wearing of flannel, the death of Kurt Cobain, the rise of Courtney Love, Winona Ryder in general, and the tech boom and subsequent crash. According to Generation X Finance, Gen X’ers may also have caused the current mortgage & housing crisis. How, you ask?

If we look at the position of Generation X in the economy, a noticeable trendemerges. The majority of those in this generation that attended collegegraduated in the mid- to late-90s. What was the economy doing then? We wereinthe midst rapid technology growth, and the sky was the limit. The economy wason fire, high-paying jobs were almost being handed out upon graduation, and lifecouldn’t have been better for this generation….
..But without being able to experience or understand the effect of inflation rates in the double-digits and what a bear market feels like, this generation had unbridledoptimism as they set out on their own.

Unbridled optimism? Really? Didn’t this guy see Reality Bites?

2. We were childless, overeducated, and rolling in the dough.

Without a family or children to support, the booming economy presented opportunities that most young adults could only dream of. Unlike their boomer parents who typically worked blue-collar jobs and didn’t venture far from their roots, many Gen Xers saw an opportunity to take dream jobs almost anywhere in the country.