Expensive homes selling well

One of the strongest categories for home sales in metro Baton Rouge has been houses priced at over $400,000. Over a 12-month period that ended in February, there were 213 new luxury homes sold in the Capital Region, with 173 transactions happening in East Baton Rouge Parish, says Tom Cook, owner of Cook, Moore & Associates. That compares with the 156 luxury home sales that took place in the 12-month period ending in February 2008. Cook, who made the comments during a presentation on the residential housing market at last week’s Trends Seminar, noted that discounts made the deals happen. The new homes had an average sale price of $581,030, down from the average sale price of $595,325 the year earlier. “They cut price and sold these houses,” Cook says. “But the important thing is that somebody bought these houses.”—Timothy Boone