FEATURE TITLE: Cool Spaces
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FEATURE TITLE: The market at a glance
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A reduction in available residential properties continues. Blame it not on a lack of homes coming to the market, but on rising demand. Property inventories are at an 11-year low.
Greater Baton Rouge average sales prices closed out 2014 at a ten-year—and potentially all-time—high of $213,310, according to the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors 2015 Trends report. That figure represents a 7.01% increase, the strongest rise in eight years, absent the post-Hurricane Katrina market.
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Livingston Parish has the most affordable housing market in the region, with an average sales price of $169,758. However, a large percentage of properties are financed through Rural Development Loans offered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which have relaxed credit standards, require no money down and offer low 30-year fixed-interest rates that are government guaranteed. Tightening those loans could severely disrupt the market.
FEATURE TITLE: Three things to watch in 2015
1. Market conditions should continue to move toward a more normalized supply-and-demand environment.
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2. Should interest rates rise—and many expect this to happen with the end of the Federal Reserve bond-buying program—it will have a major impact on the move-up market, or those homeowners who plan to move on to a new home. Notes GBRAR’s Trends report: “If the interest rate differential increases due to rising rates, the costs to move up will be prohibitive and slow the market dramatically.”
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3. Market observers note that national debt, state budget deficits, oil prices, the possibility of tax reform eliminating the home mortgage interest deduction and consumer confidence trends all could impact the single-family home market.
SOURCE: Research data was provided by the Commercial & Investment Division of the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors and presented at the 2015 Baton Rouge Trends seminar. For more information, visit batonrougetrends.net.
