OPINION|
I'm like most people who don't work in real estate. I know little about housing prices and mortgage rates unless I'm buying a house, which has happened three times in my life and, I expect, won't happen again.
But I recently started to investigate purchasing a house on behalf of a relative who lives nearby.
Maybe you already know this. Maybe you don't: Springfield is a House (Listing) Divided. At least in terms of real estate.
Houses are more expensive in Springfield on the south side. I'm using Grand Street as the line between north and south for this column
If you go to Zillow.com or homes.com the contrast on a map is striking.
If you select houses under $150,000; in the city of Springfield; and minimum one bedroom and one bath — you get 68 results. (I did this on March 27, on homes.com.)
Of those 68 houses, only four are south of Grand Street. That's 5.9 percent.
Four houses! I've looked at all of them. It didn't take long.
None was even close in value, in my view, to the three bedroom/two bath house in Southern Hills my wife and I purchased in 2013 for $141,000.
Yes, I know, that was then and this is now and mortgage rates are higher today.
Our rate in 2013 was 4.375 percent. Today, the 30-year fixed rate is about 7.0 percent, depending on various factors, including credit history.
From what I've read, most in the housing industry think rates are headed down.
The reasonable question would be: Why?
I like to think of myself as a reasonable person who asks reasonable questions.
Here's one: Why are houses less expensive north of Grand?
Vice versa, why are houses more expensive south of Grand?
My hypothesis is that most people think crime is more prevalent on the north side.
A home purchase is one of life's biggest investments. Nobody wants to live in a neighborhood where police are routinely responding to shots fired or bodies found.
Is the crime rate responsible for our Great Housing Divide?
Let me ask you: How would you delve into the connection between housing prices and crime in Springfield if you were a reporter writing a column and not a reporter spending six months investigating a five-part series?
Here's what I did: I checked homicides in Springfield. I realize homicides are only one part of overall crime, but they are, in fact, forever.
How many homicides are north of Grand? How many are south of Grand?
The numbers for homicides are available on a handy-dandy website my colleague Jackie Rehwald recently discovered called the LexisNexis Community Crime Map.
I searched within the city of Springfield, Missouri, and then used the filter to search for “homicides” and chose the most recent five years.
(In playing around with the site, I plugged in “motor theft vehicle” and found the entry for the June 21, 2022, theft of my car.)
I checked the LexisNexis Community Crime Map on March 27. There were 86 homicides in Springfield in the most recent five years.
Of those 86, there were 27 south of Grand Street, or 31 percent.
I realize there are many more factors — not just crime — involved in buying a house, including quality of local schools, as well as property crime.
In addition, homes in South Springfield generally are newer than homes in North Springfield, which is simply a result of how the city grew and expanded.
My untrained eye: same house worth about 21 percent more if moved to South SGF
In summary, in my ballpark view, if you take a nice two-bedroom, one bath house in a nice neighborhood in North Springfield that's worth, say, $140,000, and pick it up and place it in a nice neighborhood in South Springfield, it's suddenly worth $170,000. That's an increase of 21 percent.
Will you be safe from homicide in South Springfield if you pay 21 percent more for your house?
Absolutely not.
Is it less likely there will be a homicide in your neighborhood if you live in South Springfield?
Yes.
That's my simple, short analysis of what was for me — someone who hasn't dipped into the housing market in 11 years — the surprising discovery of how few homes are for sale for under $150,000 in south Springfield.
This is Pokin Around column No. 170.
