JUNE 2008
Graduation:
A Special Ceremony for C-M Seniors
Dominic Bioni stands at attention as the Canon-McMillan
graduation ceremony gets underway
Celebrations!
First the prom and then graduation
Successful Women of the South Hills
Attaining a goal is certainly an attribute
of success, especially when it involves a high
degree of personal risk.
Animal House
They’re all accepted, including neglected dogs,
one-horned cows, even horses. It’s a 24/7 mission
for Washington County’s animal shelters.
Unique Development: Summerbrooke
.
Home Staging
Before you decide to put your house on the
market, you might want to talk to a home-staging
expert first.
Home of the Wild Things
The Washington County baseball team makes the
sport exciting to play and to watch.
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A Market on the Move
While much of the nation is suffering the slings and arrows of an outrageously bad real estate market, the Greater Pittsburgh region is experiencing steady growth.
By Tim McNellie
If you listen to the tales of
woe the national media has been
spinning about the housing
market, you’d think
that a lot of real estate agents are
a few steps away from the
unemployment line.
Don’t tell that to Mary Eve Kearns
of Howard Hanna Real Estate.
“Last year was the best year I’ve
ever had in real estate,” says Kearns,
who has been in the business for
more than 15 years. “Most people in
my office had really good years too.”
Photo: Real Estate agent Mary Eve Kearns prepares to show a house.
Pittsburgh gets a lot of flak for
being out of touch. One version of a
Mark Twain quote has him saying that
if the world ends, he hopes he’s in
Pittsburgh, because everything gets
there 10 years late. And Forbes
Magazine, in declaring the Pittsburgh
is the worst city in the country for
single people, said that while mullets
and WrestleMania T-shirts have
recently come back in style with New
Yorkers as a cheeky fashion statement,
“Pittsburghers have been wearing
them without irony since 1989.”
But there’s one trend that
Pittsburghers are proud to buck: the
national housing slump. While
homeowners in many markets have
seen the values of their properties fall
off a cliff, prices in the Greater
Pittsburgh area have remained
relatively stable. And while there’s a
freeze on home construction in some
parts of the country – which is
crushing local economies – Western
Pennsylvania is still seeing a positive
trend of new housing starts.
In fact, even more the case, the
local housing market might be headed
for a mini-boom. The combination of
stable prices and low interest rates,
may have created a real estate sweet
spot, where buyers can find an
affordable house with great financing,
while sellers can still move their
property relatively quickly and at
decent prices.
“There’s a lot of activity right
now,” says Christina Ross, of Keller
Williams Realty. “Unlike other parts
of the country, our real estate values
didn’t increase tremendously over the
last few years, and as a result, we’re
not feeling the downside like those
places are now.”
In fact, while the national median
sales price of a home dipped 5.8
percent in the last months of 2007,
Pittsburgh median sale was up 4.2
percent. “It’s a great time to buy a
house,” Kearns says.
And while the region hasn’t
completely escaped the national
deluge of sub-prime loan defaults, it
hasn’t hit nearly as hard here as, say,
Cleveland, where as many as 10,000
families could lose their homes now
that their payments on their
adjustable mortgages have shot up.
The overall effects of the mortgage
crisis could still impact Western
Pennsylvania, however, especially as
banks have become much more
selective in extending credit. But at
the moment there are no serious signs
of a severe slowdown.
In Peters Township, for example,
new home construction dipped by
about 25 percent last year, but
considering the blistering pace at
which the township has grown in
recent years, that still puts new home
construction in triple digits. Thus, in
2007, some 374 homes were sold in
the township, with an average price of
$351,000.
Across the county line in South
Fayette, the township wasn’t
approached by nearly as many
housing developers last year as it had
been in previous years, but with
plenty of already-approved lots still
out there, new home starts aren’t
about to fizzle out.
The managers of both townships
report a marked increase in
commercial activity in their
communities, which may be the result
of the housing booms of previous
years. With the influx of new residents
in South Fayette and Peters,
commercial builders see opportunity.
That’s what realtors are seeing
as well. “I felt good about last year
and feel good about this year,”
says Christina Ross. “As long as
somebody doesn’t have unrealistic
expectations – like trying to get a
house at 50 percent off – it’s a good
market. Prices are good and interest
rates are low.”
"In the 22 years
I’ve been in
this business,
I’ve never
seen a market
like this.
There are so
many positive
factors in the
Pittsburgh
housing market
that we are
becoming a
role model
for the whole
country. It’ll
be a busy
spring season."
- Barb Baker Prudential Realty
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