This week’s poll is up in its usual spot on the top left. All Around K-Town is still in it’s cyber-infancy, but it’s growing & changing every day. I’d love to know what you’d like to see more of in the future. Did I miss something you’re dying for? Let me know if the comments section below.

Sometimes getting something for “free” doesn’t mean it won’t cost you anything. Remember Oprah’s car giveaway fiasco? Apparently HGTV’s Dream Home giveaway has a few pitfalls as well. According to the Chicago Tribune:

The winners of the annual “HGTV Dream Home” giveaway loved the house but plan to sell it. Each year, the cable network builds a glorious getaway home and furnishes it to the hilt, and then gives it away in a random drawing from among hundreds of thousands of entries. Almost every year, the winner has said: “Gee, it’s great, but I can’t afford it,” and puts it on the market.

This year is no different, according to Florida media reports, which say that the Iowa couple who won the $2.2 million, three-story beach house in the Florida Keys will be putting it up for sale because the prize also comes with a $700,000 bill from the IRS, plus $20,000 in annual property taxes.

Oops, ouch, & yikes. There really is no free lunch, is there?

Don Jacobs over at Navigating SmartFix40 has this to say about using neighborhood cut-throughs as a way to navigate around I-40:

…I hesitate to encourage drivers to use neighborhood roads as cut-throughs. Those cut-throughs will work for awhile, but Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV and his traffic services coordinator Lt. Eve Thomas have assured me they will be deploying officers to complaining neighborhoods to discourage speeding through communities. If you have children, you can appreciate the concerns of those residents.

Living in a cut-through neighborhood myself, I wholeheartedly concur.

Wow - traffic is way, way up on All Around K-Town! Thanks to everyone who’s stopping by, commenting and sending me emails. And welcome to all of you new subscribers. You’re the best!

Josh Flory over at Property Scope noted an article from The Tennessean about the Nashville housing market in his daily briefing today. The article says that although Nashville home sales are down, purchase prices are up:

From Mayor Bill Haslam in an interview in the Knoxville Voice:

My pet peeve about Knoxville is that we tend to think of ourselves directionally too much. Like, ‘I’m from West Knox or North or South or East.’ I think that’s held us back as a city in some really unhealthy ways.

Hat tip to Katie over at Knoxville Talks for this one.

It’s no secret that there’s a little bit of trouble in the housing market. As positive as I feel about the Knoxville housing market, I also know that sticking my head in the sand is not going to make the foreclosures and short sales I’m dealing with go away. Heck, I don’t even think I knew what a short sale was last year, and I’m almost positive I never used the phrase, “I guess the bank is just going to have to eat it” on a daily basis then either.

Since I believe knowledge is power and forewarned is forearmed, I’ve decided to educate myself and bring you along for the ride. As a totally non-scientific experiment, I’ll be doing a weekly tally of the on-market, pending, and closed foreclosures in Knox County as listed in the Knoxville MLS. And while these stats will not include pre-foreclosures or short sales, I think it will be interesting to see how the numbers change in the coming weeks.

So, without further ado, I give you the very first Knoxville Foreclosure Watch.

Knox County Foreclosure Property Statistics as of 4/9/08 *

Current On-Market Listings - 162
Average Asking Price: $134,453
Median Asking Price: $84,500
Most Expensive Listing: $799,900 (5BR, 4 1/2 BA, approx 5000 sq ft in River Club)
Least Expensive Listing: $14,900 (2 BR, 1 BA, approx 675 sq ft in Powell)

Current Pending Sales -86
Average Asking Price - $94,259
Median Asking Price - $80,900

Closed Sales April 2, 2007-April 8, 2007 - 4
Average Sales Price - $61,743
Median Sales Price - $61,200
Average Days on Market - 109

Closed Sales April 2, 2008-April 8, 2008 - 3
Average Sales Price - $94,200
Median Sales Price - $64,900
Average Days on Market - 49

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 4/09/08 for Knox County single family residential properties only, and does not include condos or PUDS.

Stay tuned for more updates…

Even as I’ve busted my behind the past week to do a short sale for a family who is about to lose their home to foreclosure, my feelings about how best to fix this mortgage mess are very mixed. Apparently the House and Senate Democrats are divided as well.

So far in NOTW, we’ve looked at Hills in the south, east, and west of Knoxville. That leaves North Knoxville’s North Hills. North Hills is a historic community bordered by Cecil Avenue to the south, Whittle Springs Road to the west, Washington Pike to the north and Prosser Road to the east. According to the North Hills Area Association:

North Hills is one of the post World War I and pre-World War II subdivisions that sprouted in Knoxville. Brothers George, Hugh and Carl Fielden started developing North Hills in the spring of 1927. By 1928, forty-three homes had been built with some of Knoxville’s most prominent families living in the area. Covering 185 acres, it was one of the largest subdivisions in Knoxville for its time. It was an upscale neighborhood that had its own private bus service to downtown Knoxville.

In addition, many famous Knoxvillians once called North Hills home, including Cas Walker and Patricia Neal.

North Hills*

Current On-Market Listings - 9
Average Asking Price: $150,733
Median Asking Price: $119,900
Average Square Footage: 1539
Most Expensive Listing: $279,900 (3 BR, 3 BA, approx 2600 sq ft)
Least Expensive Listing: $98,900 (2 BR, 1 BA, approx 1000 sq ft)

Current Pending Sales -3
Average Asking Price - $154,233
Median Asking Price - $142,900

Closed Sales - February 2007 - 2
Average Sales Price - $87,000
Median Sales Price - NA
Average Days on Market - 48

Closed Sales - February 2008 - 3
Average Sales Price - $139,967
Median Sales Price - $153,000
Average Days on Market - 128

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 4/07/08 for North Hills proper, and does not include adjacent subdivisions, condos or PUDS. I took February closings, as there were none for March ‘07 or ‘08.

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

Does anybody know any other interesting historical background on North Hills?

As usual, it’s to your left over there.

This week’s question is in honor of my super fun week spent trying to work a foreclosure sale and a suprise short sale (as in, “Suprise! We haven’t paid our mortgage in months!).