By: Diane Benjamin
h/t a reader
See this article: https://www.peoriapublicradio.org/post/central-illinois-home-sales-plunge-june#stream/0
The article does imply there aren’t enough houses on the market that meet the needs of buyers. Sale prices are increasing because of the shortage.
Thank God our house sold and we are now living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina! This neighborhood is sooo Beautiful with the nicest all American neighbors !!!
Not good. Sales are supposed to go up in the summer months, especially in places with four seasons. People still living in Bloomington are stuck. They can’t sell their house for a price they want or are otherwise stuck, while few if any are relocating to Bloomington. I mean is anyone outside of the community seriously considering moving to Bloomington, Illinois?! It seems fitting that Bloomington is joining Decatur as the region’s worst performer.
Congrats to Chuck Nicholson and family! You lucky dawg!
With the sooner than later coming State Farm’s next (adjustment) to their workforce and the money they spend on their workforce, these numbers will undoubtedly get worse. State Farm is currently being disrupted by a growing InsurTech industry. Yes, the downtown building is just the first building that will be gone from Bloomington. There will be more as State Farm withers under the attack of companies they currently consider to be just annoyances.
Good points. Regarding facilities, not sure they’re using the auxiliary building next to the main campus…sorry, the facility name escapes me.
Wow, NEVERSILENT is very vocal with purported expertise inside Rivian…(Rivian has at least 2 robotics supply contracts of $7+million) and now is equally connected with information inside State Farm? I am a fiscal conservative BLN supporter, and don’t usually leave comments, but couldn’t disagree more past Rivian business opinions from NEVERSILENT.
In a normal economy a lack of existing homes for sale immediately spurs new home construction. That isn’t happening here. Based on the permit count they’ll likely build fewer than 70 new homes in Blo-No this year. These are depression-era numbers. In 2005 1256 new homes were built in Blo-No.
The assessed value is decreasing as well.
There just are not enough Communists and deviants moving in or trading up, down and sideways to support a vibrant, or even viable housing market in BLN-NL anymore. Most decent people are coming to regret living here, and want out, not in. If you are still part of the oh-so-moderate, “Bloomington is a great place to live” crowd, bluntly, you are naive and part of the problem.
Elections have consequences.
Well said Maggie
I believe a big part of this is the actual “Middle class” is shrinking and the elites and the ne’er do wells are becoming the dominant groups looking for housing – Most of the houses up for sale fit into neither groups “needs”. The rich want McMansions or actual little mansions and the lower socioeconomic class can’t quite afford the majority of homes on the market with many of them being out of the their financial reach. This leaves a lot of the 75,000 to 150,000 homes sitting vacant with FOR SALE signs. They need the 45,000 to 65,000 houses and the psuedo-rich/new rich/elites want the 250,000 plus ones. The “rich” aren’t leaving, the poor can’t and the middle class/working class are the ones getting out of here if/when they can. It makes for a very sad housing market.
I shouldn’t have said ne’er do wells, they are the ones who get everything pretty much free. I should have said those of modest means who are trying their best to better themselves on their own without government assistance – I am sorry for that poor choice of words.
Kinda frightening that somebody would think that a $250,000 home qualifies you as “rich”. Reminds me of the idiot on this forum last week who declared that “anybody who can finance a $30,000 car is rich”.
But I guess there are not enough truly rich people for the Democrats to hate on, so they have to pick on successful, productive and enterprising people in the middle class, also. Us Conservatives have argued for years that they are their REAL target, anyway. Gotta raise money to give health care to illegals, ya know.
Actually, it kind of does, a quarter of a million for a house is out of reach for the “average person” I know people who think they are “struggling” on 75,000 a year, they aren’t it’s called learning to live within their means. I learned that a LONG time ago, and when you are putting out like 1/2 of your income for a house payment, you are not living within your means. To be honest yes, if you have a 250,000-350,000 house you are doing more than ok or you should not have gotten yourself into that much of a house. The LAST thing I want, by the way, is taking care of illegals or people who CAN but WON’T work. Recognizing that someone is doing quite well, is not hating on them, I also think it is horrendous that people are penalized by higher taxes the nicer place we have. Property tax should be eliminated (IMO) or made one set amount, which is quite low, for everyone. There are a LOT of people who have a very hard time, seriously, to pay their property taxes. Success should not be penalized – The alternative could be, make a ton of money and live in a small, low cost house, which is VERY tempting.
This comes from an individual that has been involved in housing development here for over twenty years. About four to five years ago, the market for larger and more expensive homes flat lined. This was due to people who bought them finding out later they couldn’t afford them or could not get adequate resell out of them. He admitted everyone in the business was trying to keep their heads above water by either building smaller homes of no more than 1500 square feet or building in other states or towns. Older homes in old neighborhoods held their smaller values but the ones that didn’t were being converted to apartments. He said some contractors were actively working to develop low income housing just to have work. His company had pretty much turned its attention away from BN to further develop their business interests in other states which included Florida and Colorado.