© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

This week Neighborhood of the Week goes back down south just off of Alcoa Highway to a nice little neighborhood with a quaint little name: Martha Washington Heights.

Located off the east side of Alcoa Highway between Woodson Drive and Maloney Road, Martha Washington Heights is a laid back, established neighborhood consisting mostly of homes built in the 1950s-1970s, although there is some newer construction along the edges of the community.

Like Harrill Hills and Westwood, MWH contains a nice blend of mid to late 20th century home styles, including ranchers, traditional two-stories, and, of course, split foyers.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

Since it’s right on Alcoa, Martha Washington heights is convenient to UT, downtown, and Tyson McGhee airport. It’s also within very easy commuting distance of West Knoxville, since it’s easily accessible via I-40 and I-440.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

So if you’re looking for something centrally located that’s also a little off the beaten path and that also has a good bit of character and nice, big trees, you might want to take a closer look at Martha Washington Heights.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

Here’s Westwood by the numbers -

Martha Washington Heights*

Current On-Market Listings - 6
Average Asking Price: $243,517
Median Asking Price: $228,700
Most Expensive: $389,000 (3 BR, 4 1/2 BA, approx 3000 sq ft all brick home built in 1989)

Least Expensive: $184,900 (3 BR, 2 BA, 1500+ sq ft built in  1974)

Middle of the Road: $237,500 (3 BR, 2 1/2 BA, 3400+ sq ft cape cod built in 1994)

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

Closed Sales - Jan 2008 - June 30 2008- 1
Asking Price - $249,000
Sales Price - $246,000
Days on Market -88

Closed Sales - Jan 2007 - June 30 2007- 5
Asking Price - $212,640
Average Sales Price - $208,400
Median Sales Price - $239,000
Days on Market -77

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 9/08/08 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 Martha Washington Heights Listings” or “New Martha Washington Heights Listings” in the subject line and I’ll take care of the rest. Spam? We don’t send no stinkin’ spam.

Think your little corner of K-Town would make a great Neighborhood of the Week? Let me know about it and you might just see it featured here one day soon.

Special thanks to AAKT’s resident photographer, Robert Stockdale, for the great shots of Martha Washington Heights. If you would like to learn more about Robert’s work, please visit his website.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

This week Neighborhood of the Week heads back out west to a little community just off the north leg of Northshore that may be West Knoxville’s best kept secret: Westwood.

Located just off of of the Papermill Road exit, Westwood is bordered by Papermill to north, Kinston Pike to the south, Highland Memorial Cemetary to the east, and Northshore to the west.  It is also located just up the hill from Bearden Elementary School.

Like last week’s NOTW, Harrill Hills, Westwood was developed over several decades and the homes there reflect that: 1940s style cottages, 1950s era ranchers, split foyers from the 60s, and contemporay homes from the 70s all live in happy harmony in this small community.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

Location wise, Westwood is not only very convenient to the Bearden District & West Town Mall, but it is also within easy commuting distance of UT and downtown.

Westwood is also home to Westwood Park, located on Greenbrier Drive. The park includes picnic shelters, a playground, a gazebo and a walking trail.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

So if you’re looking for something in West Knoxville that is conveniently located and affordable, but that still has lots of character, Westwood might be just what you’re looking for.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

Here’s Westwood by the numbers -

Westwood*

Current On-Market Listings - 5
Average Asking Price: $249,640
Median Asking Price: $244,000
Most Expensive: $334,500 (3 BR, 3 BA, 2700+ sq ft 1940s cottage)
Least Expensive: $169,900 (3 BR, 1 BA, 1100+ sq ft 1950s ranch)
Middle of the Road: $244,000 (4 BR, 3 BA, 3100+ sq ft 1960s split foyer)

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

Closed Sales - Jan 2008 - June 30 2008- 6
Average Asking Price - $233,267
Average Sales Price - $228,062
Median Sales Price - $229,450
Average Days on Market -62

Closed Sales - Jan 2007 - June 30 2007- 4
Asking Price - $213,675
Average Sales Price - $205,466
Median Sales Price - $199,250
Days on Market -62

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 9/01/08 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 Westwood Listings” or “New Westwood Listings” in the subject line and I’ll take care of the rest. Spam? We don’t send no stinkin’ spam.

Know of a neighborhood that is NOTW-worthy? Let me know about it and you might just see it featured here one day soon.

Special thanks to AAKT’s resident photographer, Robert Stockdale, for the great shots of Westwood. If you would like to learn more about Robert’s work, please visit his website.

In response to a recent set of KNS articles about eclectic neighborhoods in both Nashville and Chattanooga, Josh Flory over at the Property Scope is wondering which Knoxville neighborhoods, if any, qualify as funky or eclectic:

Is the Fourth & Gill/Downtown North area the best candidate? Is our city lagging when it comes to fostering eclectic and funky sections of town? Or is this kind of organic development over-rated in the first place?

All excellent questions. Any thoughts?

Since I’m out of town today, there will be no new Neighborhood of the Week post today. But never fear - you can head over to Knoxify and check out my brand new Neighborhood Guide for Holston Hills. It’s chock full of neighborhood info and sales stats and should hopefully satisfy your Knoxville neighborhood curiousity until next week, when NOTW will return. See you then!

This week Neighborhood of the Week is back in West Knoxville in a nice, little community called Benington.

Located just south of Westland on the west side of Ebenezer Road, Benington is a neighborhood made up of tradional-style homes. And although there is a section of much larger homes built in the mid 90s, most of the homes in the neighborhood were built in the 80s and early 90s and are right at or under 2000 square feet.

One of the best things about Benington — other than its convenience to Kingston Pike, Westland Drive, Northshore Drive, Bluegrass Elementary, I-40 and I-140 — is its neighborhood pool and joint Benington/Farrington (another nearby neighborhood) recreation association.  Pool membership for residents costs between $250 -$275 per summer and there are regularly scheduled “Dive-In” movie nights, when you can, according to the Benington/Farington Recreation Association website, “enjoy popcorn, snacks and a movie under the stars.” There is also a BFRA swim team and pool members may also sign up for swim lessons for an additional charge.

So if you’re looking to be in West Knoxville with a pool, but don’t want to break the bank or actually have any pool maintenance, Benington might be a good place to check out.

Take a look at these great shots of Benington, taken by photograhper Robert Stockdale. He will be regularly contributing to NOTW and you can check out his website here.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale, Photography, All Rights Reserved.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale, Photography, All Rights Reserved.

Here’s Benington by the numbers -

Benington*

Current On-Market Listings - 4
Average Asking Price: $259,900
Median Asking Price: $272,400
Most Expensive: $314,900 (4 BR, 3 1/2 BA, approx 3300 sq ft)
Least Expensive $179,900 (3 BR, 2 1/2 BA, 1500+ sq ft)
Middle of the Road: $264,900 (3 BR, 2 1/2 BA, approx 2600 sq ft)

Current Pending Sales - 3
Average Asking Price: $196,633
Median Asking Price: $174,000

Closed Sales - Jan 2008 - June 30 2008- 8
Average Asking Price - $203,050
Average Sales Price - $194,856
Median Sales Price - $180,000
Average Days on Market -74

Closed Sales - Jan 2007 - June 30 2007- 9
Asking Price - $219,833
Average Sales Price - $214,867
Median Sales Price - $209,000
Days on Market -26

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 8/11/08 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 Benington Listings” or “New Benington Listings” in the subject line and I’ll take care of the rest. Spam belongs in a can, not in your email inbox.

Do you live in a great Knoxville neighborhood you’d like to share with the world? Tell me about it and you might just see it featured here one day soon.

We just put up a new neighborhood guide on Knoxify for Lake Forest in South Knoxville. Go over and check it out and let us know what you think.

Think your neighborhood is Knoxify Neighborhood-worthy?  Drop me a line and tell me all about it.

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!

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.

Since last week’s NOTW was Sequoyah Hills, I thought Lakemoor Hills would be interesting to look at this week. Also known as the “poor man’s Sequoyah” or “Sequoyah South” due to its location across the river from Sequoyah Hills, Lakemoor Hills is a beautiful, established community just off of Alcoa Highway at Maloney Rd. But don’t let the nicknames fool you - with over 250 homes, many with lake frontage, lake views, or ample acreage, Lakemoor Hills is by no means a second class neighborhood.

Lakemoor Hills*

Current On-Market Listings - 6
Average Asking Price: $474,943
Median Asking Price: $369,900
Average Square Footage: 3437
Most Expensive Listing: $995,000 (5 BR, 5 1/2 BA, over 6500 sq ft on over 4 acres)
Least Expensive Listing: $229,900 (3 BR, 2 BA, approx 1833 sq ft)

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

Closed Sales - February 2007 - 1
Average Sales Price - $495,000
Median Sales Price - NA
Average Days on Market - 160

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

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 3/24/08 for Lakemoor Hills proper, and does not include adjacent subdivisions, condos or PUDS.

What neighborhoods would you like to see featured in the future? Any other stats that you’re itching to have?

One question buyers, especially out of town ones, always ask when we’re out looking at property is, “Is this a good area?”

Very fair question. Too bad I can’t answer it.

Due to fair housing laws, not to mention general liability issues, agents really can’t tell you if neighborhoods are “good” or “bad.” Now, you can usually look around and see if you’re in Dumpsville or not - cars up on blocks in the front yard, weeds everywhere, the garbage man is too scared to come and get the trash (don’t laugh, I’ve seen it).

But what about if there are no obvious signs?

Try Zip Skinny, a site that provides US Census and data information by zip code. Basic information on a zip includes education levels, marital status, household income, and occupations of the residents. Zip Skinny will also:

• compare info on different zip codes
• provide information on schools
• show you a map marking the geographic center of the zip code

I looked up my zip, 37919, and found out that over 50% of the residents have at least a BA degree, almost 1/2 have lived in their home for 5 or more years, the median age of residents is 36.8 years, and only 2.1% are unemployed.