This week we’re heading back out to West Knoxville to a little neighborhood just off of Sutherland Avenue called Forest Heights. Forest Heights is actually comprised of four individual subdivisions: Forest Hills, Forest Heights, Highland Hills and Highland Hills Addition.

Here’s Forest Heights by the numbers-

Forest Heights*

Current On-Market Listings - 3
Average Asking Price: $542,933
Median Asking Price: $599,900
Most Expensive: $689,900 (completely renovated 4 BR, 3 1/2 BA, approx 3800 sq ft)
Least Expensive: $339,900 (4 BR, 3 1/2 BA, approx 3000 sq ft)

Current Pending Sales -1
Asking Price - $275,000
Details: 4 BR, 2 BA, approx 1900 sq ft

Closed Sales - Q1 2007 - 4
Average Sales Price - $198,750
Median Sales Price - $182,500
Average Days on Market - 91

Closed Sales - Q1 2008 - 2
Average Sales Price - $191,500
Median Sales Price - NA
Average Days on Market - 110

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 4/21/08 for Forest Heights, Forest Hills, Highland Hills & Highland Hills Addition, and does not include adjacent subdivisions, condos or PUDS.

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

Is there a neighborhood you’d like to see here next week? Let me know in the comments.

going to Baghdad for a year seems like a nice break from the business.

This week’s poll is up and once again I’m curious about all you guys who take the time to visit my humble blog. What part of town do you call home - North, South, East, West, Downtown? Hang your hat in a neighboring county or a completely different part of the world? Let me know about it in the comments.

And remember - subscribing to All Around K-Town is the best way to stay in the know on the Knoxville real estate market no matter where you live. Try it, you might like it.

Why am I always a day behind on the Home Sales Report? Oh yeah, it’s all those pesky clients. (Note to clients - ignore previous sentence - you all are the best!) Josh Flory over at Property Scope has already put in his two cents, but I don’t think it will hurt if I put in two more.

Let’s start, as always, with the good news:

The not so great news:

Since both March and 1st Quarter stats are now up from the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors, I thought I would do something a little bit different for Homes Sales Report this month. Intrepid reader Mac O. in Hong Kong (yes, that’s right I have someone reading this in Hong Kong) sent me his own great breakdown of the March numbers and I think it’s worth sharing. Plus that means I only have to crunch the Q1 numbers. Heh.

Some of Mac’s interesting observations:

- The number of homes sold in March vs. last year dropped 24.8% in unit terms.

- The amount of homes sold in March dropped 26.2%. This is continued bad news for real estate brokers, as they work on commission.

Yeah, tell me about it, Mac.

- The average selling price dropped 1.9% year-on-year. As input costs would appear to have increased, this means smaller margins for developers.

- The inventory of homes listed above $250,000 now stands at 25.4 months versus 17.4 months of inventory a year ago.

Perhaps most interesting is this observation on FHA loans:

FHA loans skyrocketed from 56 in 2007 to 121 in 2008. That is an increase of over 100%, with 11.5% of all homes financed via FHA loans in the past month. The question becomes whether tightening lending standards are preventing people from buying a home? Or is it that FHA rates are now substantively more attractive than Conventional loans on a historical basis?

I think the answer to that question might just be that FHA really is the new subprime. It’s just about the only way to get anything like 100% financing and it’s become the only option for people whose credit scores are lower than 620. I think we’re going to see a lot more FHA loans as the year goes on.

Thanks to Mac - I look forward to seeing your April breakdown as well.

Coming next - Q1 Home Sales Report Breakdown

Will you be ready?

This is week #2 of Foreclosure Watch and oh what a week it’s been. I’ve been working on ways to present this information so it is easier to digest, but due to the short sale that wouldn’t die, I haven’t had as much time for charts and graphs as I had hoped. Please bear with me as I get all the bells and whistles up to speed.

Knox County Foreclosure Property Statistics as of 4/16/08 *

Current On-Market Listings - 158
Average Asking Price: $136,935
Median Asking Price: $87,450
Most Expensive New Listing: 5 BR, 4 BA, approx 4600 sq ft home in Choto area
Least Expensive New Listing: 2 BR, 1 BA, approx 780 sq ft home in Mechanicsville
Honorable Mention: 3 BR, 2 BA, approx 1100 sq ft home off of Tazewell Pike

Current Pending Sales -91
Average Asking Price - $91,881
Median Asking Price - $81,900

Closed Sales April 2, 2008-April 8, 2008 - 12
Average Sales Price - $94,942
Median Sales Price - $60,000
Average Days on Market - 61

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 4/15/08 for Knox County single family residential properties only, and does not include condos or PUDS.

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Have ideas that you think would make Foreclosure Watch a better experience for everyone? Feel free to leave me some constructive suggestions in the comments below.

After a really, really, monumentally, horribly bad day, I thought it might be interesting to cruise around the Knoxville MLS and look at houses I could never, ever afford. Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment. What I found out is that there are exactly 80 homes in the Knoxville MLS listed at $999,000 and up.

The most expensive is a 5 BR, 5 full bath, 4 half bath, 12,000+ sq ft home on a man made lake in Farragut. List price? $4,375,000.

I have to say that the whole concept of 4 half baths completely threw me for a loop. Where are they? Why would you need them? Why when you’re talking about a 12,000 sq ft house would it be overkill to go ahead and just make them full baths? These questions are going to keep me up tonight.

Here are a few more of my favorites:

A 5 BR, 5 1/2 BA, 14 acre waterfront home on Topside Road, including a 5 car garage and 4 stone fireplaces. List price: $1,750,000

A 4 BR, 4 BA waterfront home on Kingston Pike, built in 1928. List price $1, 750,000

A 5 BR, 4 1/2 BA Frank Lloyd Wright designed home on over 8 acres off of Duncan Rd in West Knox. List price $2,195,00

Aaahh, I feel better already. And hey, just because I can’t afford any of these doesn’t mean you can’t. And if you can afford them, why don’t you call me? That would make my tomorrow a much better day than my today was. Heh, heh, heh.

We’re back in south Knoxville this week in one of my favorite Knoxville neighborhoods, Island Home Park. Island Home began life as a “streetcar suburb” sometime around 1910. In fact, the median that divides the modern day Island Home Boulevard was once where the streetcar tracks ran that served the neighborhood.

The Island Home Park Neighborhood Association Website has a fascinating history of the neighborhood that was excerpted from the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for Island Home Park, written by Ann Bennett of the Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission. It includes great information about Perez Dickinson, the owner of the original “Island Home” summer cottage that is now part of the Tennessee School for the Deaf, as well as details about the varied architectural styles found in the neighborhood, including, most significantly, the Craftsman and Bungalow styles.

The full history on the IHPNA site is definitely worth checking out when you have the time.

Island Home is a low turnover neighborhood and choice homes often sell by word of mouth before they ever hit the market. With that said, here is Island Home Park by the numbers..

Island Home*

Current On-Market Listings - 2
Average Asking Price: $154,450
Median Asking Price: NA
Average Square Footage: 1537
Most Expensive Listing: $159,900 (2 BR, 1 BA, approx 1600 sq ft)
Least Expensive Listing: $149,900 (3 BR, 1 BA, aprox 1660 sq ft)

Current Pending Sales -0
Average Asking Price - NA
Median Asking Price - NA

Closed Sales - March 2007 - 1
Average Sales Price - $249,900 (4 BR, 2 BA, approx 2550 sq ft)
Median Sales Price - NA
Average Days on Market - 71

Closed Sales - February 2008 - 0
Average Sales Price - NA
Median Sales Price - NA
Average Days on Market - NA

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 4/14/08 for Island Home proper, and does not include adjacent subdivisions, condos or PUDS.

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

Any neighborhood you’re dying to see featured here next week? Let me know in the comments.

Nashville now has its very own line of Sherwin Williams paint colors. From The Tennessean:

Sherwin-Williams, which brought us the historic colors of Charleston with the Carolina Low Country Collection, has developed a Nashville palette, and some of the colors are inspired by the city’s favorite foods and attractions.

The interior and exterior of The Parthenon inspired three colors: a burnt-red Freize, a reddish-orange Evening Temple and a gorgeous blue known as Coffered Ceiling. Cathedral Masonry, a soft dusty gold, pays homage to the bricks of the Cathedral of the Incarnation on West End Avenue. And Woof brown was conceived over café-au-lait at the Hillsboro Village coffeehouse Fido.

Other Nashville inspired colors include Flapjacks (after the Pancake Pantry) and Vandy (gold, of course). Street names and parts of town also got their own colors.

So, other than Big Orange, what colors would you recommend for a possible Knoxville line?

And what colors would Cumberland Ave, Broadway, Chapman Highway or Kingston Pike be? How about Island Home, Sequoyah Hills, Holston Hills or all of Farragut?

Let your imagination run wild in the comments, people.