Pittsburgh Condo Tracker

PA Median Home Prices Holding Their Own

–        by Austin J. Jaffe, Ph.D.Published in

 The Pennsylvania Realtor® 

Everywhere we look we see the expected rising median house price phenomenon coming to an end.  Some never would have predicted it; indeed, for many real estate enthusiasts, housing markets always rose year after year, just like clockwork.  These days there’s a new reality, one which might last for some time, experts predict, and national media reports continue to reflect READ MORE median-home-prices.doc

The owner of a number of high-profile Pittsburgh office developments has sold a prominent medical office building three blocks from UPMC Shadyside.

Newton, Mass.-based HRPT Properties Trust, a real estate investment trust, sold the 75,000-square-foot building, at 5750 Centre Ave., as part of a nationwide portfolio sale to its former subsidiary, Senior Housing Properties Trust, for more than $15 million or about $200 per square foot, according to the Allegheny County Department of Real Estate.

The property, which HRPT purchased READ MORE

A condominium development, long slated for prime real estate on top of Mount Washington, is finally moving forward.

Developer Dan DiPardo and Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl will participate Tuesday in the groundbreaking of Vista Grande, a 11-unit luxury condo project to be built at 501 Grand View Ave., with prices starting at $500,000.

Vista Grande has been in the works for years.

DiPardo and Craig Cozza, who is planning two condo projects READ MORE

At its regular board meeting Thursday, the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh could seek a buyer or developer for four Beechview properties that once were controlled by developer Bernardo Katz.

The agenda for the board’s Thursday meeting READ MORE

When it took $45 to fill the gas tank in Eric Wallace’s Honda Civic, he knew his days of driving 40 miles each way to work couldn’t last.”I went home and said, ‘We have to do something,’ ” said Wallace, 36, of Arnold, who is looking to move closer to his job as director of information technology at a steel distribution and service center in Leetsdale.

Wallace and his wife, Tammy, 32, put the three-bedroom house they bought in 2000 up for sale and are hoping to cut their fuel costs with shorter commute times. Tammy Wallace is a registered nurse at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC in Oakland and drives 23 miles each way to work.

Across the country, people who traded longer commutes for life in the suburbs READ MORE

Communities with stable populations, including Pittsburgh, are ideal for shopping center developers during depressed times, according to the president of a Cleveland real estate company with major holdings in this region.”We built or purchased centers in these communities, many in the North East, because our decisions were based on the population and economies of those areas,” said Dan Hurwitz, president for Developers Diversified Realty Corp.

“Developers rushed to fast growth areas such as those in California, Arizona and Florida during the past few years, building shopping centers on spec, only now to find it difficult READ MORE

As he gassed up his 2002 Honda Civic recently, David Underwood found himself at the intersection of two priorities: transportation costs and housing.

Paying $53 for a tank of gas to commute from his Kirkland rental condo to his Seattle job, Underwood realized that price set a “personal best” he’d rather not repeat.

That’s why after much discussion, he and his partner, Kali Kuwada, decided to buy their first home in Seattle, as close to their jobs as possible.

“We found ourselves talking more and more often about house prices  READ MORE

Take a look in just about any neighborhood and you may find the sign of distressed times. Foreclosures are on the rise and that can cause a lot of panic for sellers who aren’t in the same financial crisis.

“We’re in a very price-sensitive market and obviously in any buyers’ market that’s the case,” says Chris Heller, President of The Heller Real Estate Group, Inc. at Keller Williams.

The increase of awareness about foreclosures is stimulating buyers to keep fishing and pushing for even lower prices for homes.

“So the sellers who are not in foreclosure or who are not in distress have to compete with those properties with the same pool of buyers. So there are two things that they can do; the two things are: pricing the property READ MORE

Sure it can be frustrating, exhausting and time-consuming to sell a home in some markets, but don’t try to cut corners by failing to make the proper disclosures.

Not only is it illegal for you and your agent not to disclose certain material facts that can affect the value, desirability or salability of a home, most savvy buyers will quickly walk away if he or she suspects deceit.

If you lie by omission and get caught, not only can you face both local and federal charges, you’ll still have a home to sell in a less-than-hospitable market. The extra time to sell your home and your day in court could stigmatize the property.

Of course, if you honestly don’t know READ MORE

On Upper Lawrenceville’s still-spotty 5200 block of Butler Street, a building fronted with a glass mosaic and one with the partly-painted facade across the street represent the rise and decline of one of Pittsburgh’s most successful redevelopment programs.

Behind the explosion of color and texture that greets visitors to Prism Stained Glass toils Catherine Berard, who used the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Streetface program to turn a storefront from plain clapboard into revelation. Back in 2006, she was one of 15 individuals and firms that tapped the program for a total of $607,854, according to data provided by the URA.

The place across the street, where laborers painted last week,  READ MORE