In many ways, Hunter’s Trace, Lake Villas and The Willows at Bayou Fountain are standard, everyday American subdivisions, filled with recent college graduates, young professionals and newlyweds moving into starter homes, as well as older couples downsizing into smaller, more affordable houses.
It’s that near-universal appeal, and, more importantly, affordability, that make these subdivisions—all tucked in a corridor along Burbank Drive, between Lee Drive and Highland Road—among the “hottest” in East Baton Rouge Parish, based on units sold over the past three months, as well as average days on market and months of inventory over the same time period.
It may come as little surprise that Baton Rouge’s three hottest subdivisions are all in the under-$350,000 market, considering the numbers make it clear homebuyers aren’t gobbling up million-dollar-plus homes—a sector of the market that in July, as reported by Business Report, had amassed a nearly two-year supply of inventory.
Shelley Simmons of CJ Brown Realtors, ranking the three neighborhoods in no particular order, says they’re all “hot” for reasons largely tied to price point.
“There is still a very diverse base of buyers,” says Simmons, who chaired the residential committee for the 2019 Trends in Real Estate report. “What they have in common is that they’re newer.”
Further fueling demand is the until the recently limited supply of starter and smaller-sized homes priced below $350,000. There are several developments in the Zachary area that come in at that price-point which, along with that area’s top-ranked public schools, makes them hot-sellers as well, and the same can be said for pockets of Livingston and Ascension parishes. Still, none are moving at the pace seen along Burbank. Read the full feature from Business Report.
