This week Neighborhood of the Week is headed back out west, this time to Hardin Valley and a new neighborhood that a lot of people keep asking me about: Covered Bridge.

It’s no secret that Hardin Valley is a hot area right now, what with a brand new high school opening for students there this fall and lots of new commercial development. There are many new neighborhoods in the area, but Covered Bridge is definitely one of the more up-scale of the bunch. According to what appears to be the official website:

Covered Bridge is one of Knoxville’s most pristine environments for comfortable and convenient living. The natural unspoiled beauty of the land surrounding the site is part of its unique charm. Nearly 40 acres of land are dedicated to outdoor leisure including an activities field.

With quality of life as the overriding goal, the amenities at Covered Bridge were developed with the highest quality materials. We paid significant attention to detail in every selection we made, from the street lights and sidewalks to the activities field and clubhouse. The community surrounding Covered Bridge is designed to be outstanding in every way.

Amenities include a clubhouse, pool, activities field, and yes, an actual covered bridge.

And although there appear to be several different builders with homes for sale in Covered Bridge, the neighborhood has covenants and restrictions, as well architectural guidelines, in place to ensure a certain amount of uniformity.

If you’re looking for new construction in a country like setting with easy access to both Hardin Valley Elementary, Hardin Valley High School, and the Pellissippi Parkway, Covered Bridge might just what you’re looking for.

Image from http://www.hardinvalley.com

Note: while there are “villas” (read: condos) in Covered Bridge, I will only be looking at single family homes in the stats. But don’t despair – you can always drop me a line if you’d like the numbers for the villas.

Here’s Covered Bridge by the numbers -

Covered Bridge*

Current On-Market Listings – 18
Average Asking Price: $595,239
Median Asking Price: $594,900
Most Expensive: $847,500 (5 BR, 4 full bath, 2 half bath, 5200+ sq ft)
Least Expensive: $469,000 (4 BR, 3 BA, 2500+ sq ft ranch with bonus room)
Middle of the Road: $829,900 (4 BR, 2 1/2 BA, Frank Betz plan)

Current Pending Sales -1
Average Asking Price: $671,900
Median Asking Price: NA

Closed Sales – Jan 2008 – present- 2
Average Asking Price – $674,950
Average Sales Price – $668,700
Median Sales Price – NA
Average Days on Market – 112

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 6/30/08 does not include adjacent subdivisions, condos, PUDS, 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 Covered Bridge Listings” or “New Covered Bridge Listings” in the subject line and I’ll take care of the rest. No spam or sales pitches, I pretty promise.

This week’s neighborhood of the week was suggested by a loyal AAKT reader. Is there a neighborhood you’d like to see featured here in the coming weeks? Tell me all about it in the comments and I’ll do my best to make it happen.

I just discovered another house hunting tool over on Inman News.
It’s a website called Hoodeo that bills itself as “The Neighborhood Matchmaker.” The concept is simple: create a profile by answering a few questions about income and general housing preferences, and Hoodeo will match you up with homes that it thinks fit you to a T.

So is Hoodeo worth its salt? Kind of. Based on my answers (and my saying that I didn’t want to leave the Knoxville area), Hoodeo placed me in Fountain City, which is a great part of Knoxville that my husband and I once thought about moving to. The homes it picked for me, however, were totally not my style. This is maybe not such a big surprise, since the only questions Hoodeo asked me about what I was looking for in a home were price, number of bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage.

Just for larfs, I went back and answered all of my questions the same, except that I said I was willing to leave K-Town. Apparently my #1 dream city is a place called Cedar Hill, Texas, which appears to be right outside of Dallas. A match made in heaven? Um, no.

Still, it’s an interesting idea and it works for renters as well as for those looking to buy. Go check it out and then come back here and let me know what your neighborhood match is in the comments.

Is it totally shameless for me to tell you that I’m featured in Michael Silence’s weekly deadwood column on blogging and bloggers today, where I answer his 4 regular “blogger” questions? Probably, but I’m so tickled pink I just gotta tell someone. There are also some kind words about AAKT in the intro. Thanks, Mike!

For those of you who found your way here from the article – welcome and thanks for stopping by! There’s lots of Knoxville real estate goodness to explore here, so take a look around and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear from you.

If you like the site and want to make sure you don’t miss a single post, why not subscribe to it? You can subscribe in a reader by clicking here or by you can receive new posts by email by entering your email address in the box at the upper right side of the page. psst…If you don’t know what a reader is, check out this great article for an explanation.

Thanks again for stopping by (and also for enduring my shamless self-promotion). Don’t forget to tune in every Monday for Neighborhood of the Week and every Wednesday for Knoxville Foreclosure Watch. See you soon!

This week’s poll is up in the top left corner of the page. You know the spot.

We’re only a week away from the 4th of July and I thought it would be a good time to look at home ownership as a part of the American dream. As recently as 2002, President Bush was quoted as saying, “Owning a home lies at the heart of the American dream.” But a lot has happened in the last 6 years that might make some people think otherwise.

There was an interesting op-ed on the subject recently in the New York Times in which the author claimed that the idea of home ownership is so ingrained in us as a nation, it even affects our policy making and causes us to look at renters as second-class citizens. The author goes on to say that we need to “drop our obsession with homeownership and try to level the playing field that, at the moment, is hugely tilted against renting.”

Whether or not we are truly obsessed, there are still plenty of people, myself included, who still think the benefits of homeownership outweigh the downsides.

So what do you think? Is home ownership something you consider as American as baseball and apple pie? Are Americans too obsessed with the idea of owning a home? Will all of the chaos in the housing market start to change our perception of renting vs. owning? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

And hey – have a safe and happy 4th of July!

I’m very tired tonight (I’m looking at you Mr. Counter Offer!), so I’m more or less phoning this link round-up in, but here are a few things I’m wondering about:

Exactly what kind of agent do you have to be to make someone set up a blog about how much you suck?*

Well, hello there, Watchers. In this week’s installment of Foreclosure Watch, listings are slightly up, while pendings and closings are slightly down. Days on Market is back up where it was before last week’s sudden free fall and average list and sales price is making its first upward move in several weeks.

Technical note: RealFocus, the source of the fancy shmancy listing sheets I link to here, has been having some problems this week. Please be patient if these links don’t work properly for the next few days. Sorry!

Now for the breakdown:

Knox County Foreclosure Property Statistics as of 6/25/08 *

Current On-Market Listings - 157 ?
Average Asking Price: $122,653 ?
Median Asking Price: $85,500 ?
Most Expensive New Listing: $249,900 (4 BR, 2 1/2 BA 2700+ sq ft in Halls)
Least Expensive New Listing: $26,900 (3 BR, 1 BA, 1100+ sq ft in East Knox)

Notable New Listings:
North: 3 BR, 2 1/2 BA, 1500+ sq ft in Halls
South: 4 BR, 1 1/2 BA, 1400+ sq ft in Lake Forest
East: 3 BR, 2 BA, 1500+ sq ft on 4+ acres in Carter
West: 3 BR, 2 BA, 2700+ sq ft in Ashley Oaks

Current Pending Sales -112 ?
Average Asking Price – $89,667 ?
Median Asking Price – $69,900 ?

Closed Sales June 18, 2008-June 24, 2008 - 9 ?
Average Asking Price – $83,844?
Average Sales Price – $70,430?
Median Sales Price – $66,500 ?
Average Days on Market – 62 ?

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 6/25/08 for Knox County single family residential properties only, and does not include condos or PUDS.

As always, if you have any questions about any of these properties, feel free to drop me a line.

If you’d like to receive new foreclosure listings automatically, just send me an email with “Foreclosure List” in the subject line, and I’ll do the rest. No yucky spam is involved, I swear.

Don’t let your fear of commitment get in the way of getting great info on the Knoxville real estate scene – subscribe to All Around K-Town today!

If you’re in the middle of buying or selling a home, you might want to take a look at what happened when local Knoxville blogger, The Modern Gal googled the soon to be new owner of her home:

I found out she and I went to the same college and were on the same Facebook and lucky for me! she didn’t have her Facebook page set to private as everyone should. So I found out all I needed to know: she’s a year younger than me, we have a couple mutual friends, she’s a sorority girl, a marketing director of some company I’ve never heard of, but most importantly she was “In the process of buying a new house, which is really exciting. Yay..now people will actually have room to come stay with me and visit!”

Bingo.

I found all this after I had made my counteroffer, which she eventually accepted, so it was of no use to me in that department, but it did help me not freak out about the rest of the closing process.

Luckily, in this case, nothing bad came from the buyer’s excited Facebook postings. But it is a good reminder that as you’re blogging/updating/posting/tweeting the details of your ongoing real estate transaction, the other side might very well be there reading right along.

We’re going back down to the south side of K-Town and across the Henley Street bridge for this week’s Neighborhood of the Week, Colonial Village.

Colonial Village is a Dogwood Trail community located just off Chapman Highway, and just across the way from Lake Forest. The Colonial Village Neighborhood Association’s website details the history of the area:

The area of the 6000 block of Chapman Highway, was a part of the original 200 acre farm of Samuel A McCall (1856-1934). The new highway, went through the middle of his property. This proved to be disastrous for Mr. McCall. On October 28, 1934, while attempting to cross the new road to get to his barn to feed his livestock, he was struck by an automobile and died later that evening at Ft. Sanders Hospital…

…The rural area did not stay vacant for long. Progress came and commercial development was flourishing along this main route. The residential development became fast growing into a beautiful little neighborhood and eventually with four churches, (Meridian Baptist Church, Colonial Heights Methodist Church, South Knoxville Church of God and Moorland Heights Baptist Church) one elementary school (Mooreland Heights School) and one city park. The park, named for the former Knoxville city councilman for our district, is the Gary Underwood Park and Greenway and is located on Moore Road. At this same park is the Ras P. Neal Soccer Field and the South Knoxville Optimist Club Building, which serves as the voting precinct for the 27th Ward. However, just on the edge of our district is a second park, and that is the 26 acre Charter Doyle Park, that in 1984, was donated to the city and county by former long-time Superintendent of Knox County Schools, Mildred Doyle. This parcel of land was part of a land grant issued for his service to his country, to Pvt. John Doyle, Mildred’s Revolutionary War patriot ancestor. He is buried in a family cemetery on the hill in a fenced area of the park.

The popular Butterfly Lake, our area fishing hole, was the result of a series of sink holes that are along the south side of Colonial Road. In the early days, is referred to as McCall’s Pond, but today is frequently called the Duck Pond…

…By the late 1950’s, the Chapman Highway Dogwood Trail was etched into the neighborhood by the city traffic engineers. The problem of folks being able to take the scenic tour without a guide, was solved with an ingenuous plan of painting the street with white markings on the pavement. The only change in that plan is what it is now painted pink.

The website has an interesting old photo showing the area before it was completely developed. There are also several present day photos highlighting the lovely scenery that earned the neighborhood a spot on Knoxville’s Dogwood Trail.

If you’re looking for an affordable, community-minded neighborhood with gorgeous scenery that is convenient to UT and downtown, you might consider giving Colonial Village a closer look.

Here’s Colonial Village by the numbers -

Colonial Village*

Current On-Market Listings – 9
Average Asking Price: $125,822
Median Asking Price: $114,900
Most Expensive: $190,00 (4 BR, 2 1/2 BA, 3100+ sq ft basement ranch)
Least Expensive: $99,900 (2 BR, 1 BA, 900+ sq ft ranch)
Middle of the Road: $119,900 (3 BR, 1 1/2 BA, 1700+ sq ft ranch)

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

Closed Sales – Q1 2007 – 4
Average Asking Price – $127,450
Average Sales Price – $123.113
Median Sales Price – $106,350
Average Days on Market – 93

Closed Sales – Q1 2008 – 1
Average Asking Price – $99,900
Average Sales Price – $98,500
Median Sales Price – NA
Average Days on Market – 96

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 6/23/08 does not include adjacent subdivisions, condos, PUDS, 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 Colonial Village Listings” or “New Colonial Village Listings” in the subject line and I’ll take care of the rest. No spam or sales pitches, scout’s honor.

Thanks to those of you who have given me great ideas for upcoming Neighborhoods of the Week. Want to join in on the fun? Make your suggestions in the comments.

This week’s poll is patiently waiting for you on the upper left hand corner of the page. Don’t make it sit there all alone – go ahead and cast your vote!

This week’s topic is rising gas prices how they will affect the housing market. A lot of people in other areas are already moving closer to work or moving to more walkable communities in order to pay less at the pump. Do you think Knoxville home buyers will follow suit? Would you change where you live now in order to save money on gas?

And while subscribing to All Around K-Town may not save you money on gas, it will definitely save you from being out of the loop on the Knoxville real estate market. Following me on Twitter is equally helpful.

I just discovered a wickedly funny little power point presentation over at the Inman Blog, in which foul-mouthed little stick figures explain the sub-prime debacle. And when I say foul-mouthed, I mean foul-mouthed. If you don’t like bad words, please don’t click through it.

F-bombs, stick figures, and humor aside, the “Primer” does a great job of putting the whole mortgage mess into fairly simple terms. Apparently this was circulated among Wall Street traders earlier this year, though I’m not sure of the original source.