While the number of homes sold in the Capital Region is down 19% during the first six months of the year, Ascension Parish is holding its own. The number of houses sold in the parish was down 5% through June when compared with last year, according to the Greater Baton Rouge Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service. There were 659 houses sold in the first half of 2008, compared with 626 this year. By comparison, there were 670 houses sold in Livingston Parish during the first half of 2008, but that tally has dropped by 24% to 507 as of June. East Baton Rouge home sales were down nearly 22%, from 2,500 to 1,962 this year.
Realtors in Ascension credit the strength of parish schools and the local commercial base with keeping the market stable. Another factor in the stable number of sales may have to do with home prices. Through June 2008, the average price of a MLS sale in Ascension was $217,805. That’s down to $209,160 this year, a 4% drop (less than the 6.5% drop that's happened in the Baton Rouge region.) Gary Binns, chairman of the Ascension Council of Realtors and an agent with Coldwell Banker Commercial Mackey in Prairieville, says builders are responding to what buyers are looking for. "The new home sales market is price-driven," he says.
Beth Alford, an agent with Re/Max First Ascension, says while the market for homes at $300,000 has slowed in the parish, there's demand for houses under $250,000. Alford says much of the sales activity is happening in Dutchtown and Prairieville. "That's closer to the interstate and to Baton Rouge," she says.—Timothy Boone
link: http://www.businessreport.com/archives/real-estate-weekly/2009/jul/14/1079/
