Realtor Reda Cockerham occasionally has a crisis of conscience when she’s selling a home in Central that she remembers from her early days of working the area.
“It’s real hard for me sometimes to sell a house for over $100,000 that I know sold in the $20,000s,” says Cockerham, a resident of Central who has been selling houses in the area since the 1980s. “I remember neighborhoods where you couldn’t move houses for more than $30,000.”
How times have changed.
Though Central real estate still offers plenty of good deals and relatively affordable property compared to other parts of the Baton Rouge metropolitan area, the value of homes and land has shot up exponentially. Central incorporated with its own city hall and school district in April 2005.
Over the past three years, the population has increased an estimated 10% to 27,000. Property values also have increased with the growth in residents. During the first six months of this year, 82 homes changed hands, according to the Multiple Listing Service, which does not include properties that were sold by their owners. That’s about the same as this time last year. What’s more, they’re selling in less than three months on average, which is just slightly longer than it took them to sell last year.
More significantly, home prices continue to increase. The average sale price so far this year tops $192,000, or more than $101 per square foot. That’s up nearly 5% from two years ago, when the average sale price was $183,700, and just under $99 per square foot.
“Prices have really shot up,” Cockerham says. “We just put a home on the market in the $214,000 range, and we sold it less than two days.”
The downside to the growth has been a shortage of the affordable starter and mid-range homes that have made Central so popular. Land prices have shot up, which means builders cannot afford to spend less than, say, $180 per square foot on new construction.
“We don’t have anything in the $150,000 to $175,000 range anymore,” she says. “People who were going to move have already done so, and there hasn’t been any new construction in that price range because the price of land has gotten so high.”
That might be an understatement.
Depending on the subdivision, lots are on the market for as much as $75,000 per acre. That might still sound like a bargain, but Jane St. Pierre remembers her family paying just $3,000 per acre when they bought a 30-acre tract on Greenwell Springs Road in the early 1990s.
“We moved up here with my mom and dad and built our homes simultaneously,” she says. “We were the only people anywhere near here.”
While homes in the lower and middle price ranges might be in short supply in Central, one new trend with all the growth is an increase in higher-end homes and more upscale subdivisions. Newer developments like Bellingrath Lakes offer homes in the $300,000-$500,000 range, while Evergreen Hills and Biltmore are in the $200,000-$300,000 range.
“It’s hard for people to understand what has happened here,” Cockerham says. “There’s has been so much growth and change, and it has happened so quickly.”
St. Pierre and her family have watched it from their front porches on Greenwell Springs Road. Her father, Lewis Claverie, remembers when they first moved to the area from their native Gretna, he could count 30 cars about every 30 minutes.
“Now, you can’t even get out of the driveway,” he says.
Still, the Claveries and St. Pierres say Central has maintained its rural feel, which is what attracted them to the area in the first place. They like the wooded areas that surround their property, and that they can live in the country and be just moments from the city. Jane’s husband Rick, who grew up in Central, worries sometimes that too many people are encroaching on what not so long ago was a sleepy, secluded area not long ago.
“Rick will sometimes say, ‘Oh, no, people, are closing in on us,’” St. Pierre says. “But I have put my foot down. We’re not moving any further out. We love it here.”
Rick St. Pierre does have a point. The rapid expansion has brought its share of problems. Traffic has gotten worse, especially during rush hour, and the infrastructure has not kept up with the growth. It can take Jane St. Pierre as much as 40 minutes to get to St. Aloysius in south Baton Rouge, where she teaches and their two sons attend school.
“There haven’t been any new roads and no new sewerage or drainage improvements,” Claverie says.
But with the growth have come benefits—like more retail options and the area’s first real restaurant, Sammy’s, which is set to open later this year.
“It’s nice that the development has brought more amenities to the area,” St. Pierre says.
As residents and realtors look to the future of Central, they see more growth and expansion, which can be a blessing and a curse. They are hopeful the growth will be managed responsibly, and the city government can keep up with the demand for services and infrastructure improvements while keeping the rural feel that made their area so attractive.
“If you don’t mind the drive, it’s wonderful up here,” St. Pierre says. “It has all the advantages of small country life.”
