Time Magazine listed St Louis last month as one of the World's Greatest Places in 2021! They listed us among 100 extraordinary destinations to explore. The areas highlighted for our town are a reinvigorated downtown, food, trails, hotels, arts, sports, and the Arch.

See the full write-up here: St. Louis Is One of the World’s Greatest Places | TIME

What nice recognition for all the good that St Louis is - Go STL!

North City has some wonderful homes near the new NGA going up. Next time you cruise over to Crown Candy in Old North St Louis, head west a few blocks to view the progress on the multi-billion dollar NGA development, and check out some nice housing stock on the near north side, mirroring some of the high demand south side neighborhoods like Soulard, Lafayette Square and Tower Grove East. Wouldn't it be amazing if this was the catalyst to reinvigorate north city for more people to live, visit and enjoy?

David Nicklaus in the Post reported last week that St Louis is a hotspot for investors, ranking 8th for net purchases (more buying than selling) out of the top 50 US markets, indicating a strong desire to buy and hold due to expected price gains. We are viewed as a having "a good rate of return...finding good value now with an expectation of price growth in the future." The STL residential market has been scored for years as one of the best values in the country for a major metro. Now, about 10% of all area purchases are by investors, putting more pressure on increasing home prices as our inventory continues to shrink. Realtor.com's chief economist calls STL an unusually active market for investors, the top firms which were identified as SFR3 in California, VB One based in Ohio, and Home Partners, also national. Many local residents buy one or two homes as an investment too (I had two for 13 years, helped pay for college), which is likely the majority of single family landlords.

Is this a good or bad thing? I believe having a healthy balance of single family rental homes is good, as there is a certain demand for them, although too many in one area can be negative. It can also hurt prices if these large companies decide to sell them too close together. In 2008-2011 a higher number of homes turned rental to avoid selling at low prices, and they were easily absorbed in the rising market since 2012.

Get ready for fall, it will be here soon. If moving before the holidays is in your plans, contact me now to get started -- you can be done before Thanksgiving!