Suburban Hills Housing Report June 2015

After featuring Town N County Park in yesterday’s housing report, today we’ll review Suburban Hills, another NW Tallahassee subdivision that is also nearby the CENTRE of Tallahassee (formerly known as the Tallahassee Mall). 

When The CENTRE of Tallahassee is fully renovated and operation, we expect this dynamite location to become very popular with younger people who want to be located near all the amenities the new retail development will be offering. This makes Suburban Hills a super opportunity for owner occupants and investors alike.

Additionally, this is a neighborhood that is located a few yards west of the east-west dividing line (Meridian Road) in Tallahassee, thus we believe the values have been unfairly beaten down due to an improper perception of location by buyers. This will not last forever.

In this report, we will look at home prices, home values, and home sizes in Suburban Hills, as well as show current listings in the Tallahassee MLS and all closed home sales going back to 1991.

Home Prices In Suburban Hills

For the 3 real estate graphs found in this report, you will find the number of closed home sales for each year (red columns, measured on the left vertical axis), and an important real estate statistic shown in blue (measured on the right vertical axis. It is important to note that sales are through December for all previous years, but through the second week of June in 2015.

Average home prices are down 9% since last year, but are still higher than they were two years ago. Much of the blame can be placed on the abundance of distressed properties that were sold, as 42% of the homes sold in the past 18 months have been distressed. The average recorded sales price is $126,325 for Suburban Hills thus far in 2015.

Average Home Price

Home sales activity in 2015 appears fairly strong. Unlike most neighborhoods in Tallahassee, Suburban Hills did not “explode” during the expansion of the housing market from 2004 through 2006, though sales did decline for a few years during the recovery. The current rate of home sales in Suburban Hills is consistent with the historical norm.

Through the second week in June 2015, there have been 4 closed home sales in Suburban Hills.

Home Values

Average home values in Suburban Hills have declined 11% so far in 2015, and down 25% since 2012. Again, with so many distressed home sales in recent years, this is not a big surprise. Many of these homes have qualified for various programs (ie Homepath) thus the buyer pool was restricted and the homes sold for lower values.

There is one home for sale (under contract) in Suburban Hills as of the writing of this report, thus I would expect/hope that we have seen the majority of distressed sales purged from this great neighborhood. Buyers and investors would be wise to recognize that single family homes on more than a third of an acre within walking distance to shopping and schools will return to high demand when the supply and demand for houses in Tallahassee stabilizes. 

Don’t be surprised if we don’t see Suburban Hills home values rise rapidly as arms-length sellers re-enter the market and buyers discover this incredible location just a bit west of the NE Tallahassee quadrant.

Average Home Value

Through the first week in June, the average value of a home sold in Suburban Hills this year has been $79 per square foot. This means that home values are far lower than the current and future cost of replacement. I would go so far as to say that some of the homes sold in this area over the past few years were done below the value of the land alone.