South Bend named #1 city for home bargains

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Our home values are making national news.  As seen on NBC's Today show -- watch this video for details.  Great time to buy.

Office of the Mayor

NEWS RELEASE

January 6, 2010 3:30 p.m.                                                                               

South Bend tops U.S. cities for best home value

Contact:  Mikki Dobski, Director of Communications & Special Projects, 235-5855 or 876-1564 or Sue Solmos, Residential Marketing Specialist, 235-9371

South Bend is the best city in the nation to find value, stability and rising prices in a home while living in a community with anticipated job growth, according to a real estate expert interviewed Jan. 5 on NBC-TV’s Today Show.

Barbara Corcoran, a real-estate contributor to the Today Show and CNBC, ranked South Bend first among the “Top 10 Cities for Bargain Homes.”

In South Bend, Corcoran told interviewer Ann Curry, the median “price is just $89,000, and prices have been rising steadily for almost a full year now.

“Still, the median price is only half of what it is in the rest of the nation,” she said. “That’s an enormous difference -- a lot of house for the dollars.”

Corcoran’s report showed a three-bedroom Victorian home in South Bend as she commented, “Pretty! Pretty! Pretty! It’s $90,000. That is a creampuff of a house – in great condition.”

If the availability of housing values weren’t enough to put South Bend atop her list, “the cost of living is a whopping 29 percent lower than anywhere else,” added Corcoran who sold her company The Corcoran Group for $70 million in 2001.

South Bend’s value for housing confirms the experience of Sue Solmos, a former Indianapolis real-estate agent who moved to South Bend in 2008 to become the residential marketing specialist for the City of South Bend’s Department of Community and Economic Development.

“I was delighted to see that we were on the top 10 list and even more impressed to see that we were No. 1, as we well should be,” Solmos said. “Given that we have 10 universities and colleges, this new high-tech initiative going on and absolutely fabulous neighborhoods with magnificent housing stock, South Bend is an obvious choice. We are a train ride to Chicago, a short ride to the beaches of Lake Michigan and, for a city our size, we have surprisingly good arts and culture.”

Here is Corcoran’s ranking of cities as appeared on the Today Show:

1)      South Bend, Ind.

2)      Akron, Ohio

3)      Topeka, Kan.

4)      New Haven, Conn.

5)      Tucson, Ariz.

6)      Minneapolis

7)      Portland, Maine

8)      Miami

9)      Kingston, N.Y.

10)  Trenton, N.J.

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