Real Estate Market 411 for Buyers and Sellers on the East Side of Providence
It doesn’t take long at a cocktail party before I’m asked “So how’s the market doing?” or these days, “How are YOU doing?”. The answer is complex of course. The East Side of Providence and the adjunct neighborhood of Oak Hill is analogous to other real estate “micro-climates” like Manhattan, Back Bay Boston, downtown LA, and the “Gold Coast” of Chicago. Like these areas, the East Side, for a variety of lifestyle, architectural, transportation, and cultural factors, is considered the strongest area for living and investing in Providence. Property values are by far the highest in the city. The analogous areas above share these factors with the East Side of Providence, albeit on a smaller scale. These are also the markets where we see signs of moderate declines and recent increases in median price or units sold. In these areas historically the dips have been less severe and the recovery faster and are not subject to the wild swings of more volatile markets for a variety of reasons. I will follow up with more detailed explanations of these factors, but the short answer is that the East Side/Oak Hill is holding it’s own despite severe conditions in many markets nationally. The major caveat is of course what develops with our national economy, international market forces, global instability, etc. Nevertheless, all things being equal, these microclimates will continue to fair better in terms of relative stability in price, units sold, and days on market within varying national market conditions.
Useful related article: “Big-City Home Prices Are Faring Well” by Jeff D. Opdyke, The Wall Street Journal. May 20, 2008
