Why invest?

Why invest in Philadelphia real estate?

Appreciation

Philadelphia was recently ranked by Bankrate.com as one of ten “bubble blowers” – cities where real estate will continue to appreciate.  “The [National Association of Realtors] NAR quarterly report showed a 12% increase in appreciated between 2004 and 2005, high enough to encourage people to buy homes, but not at such as dizzying rate as to spark panic purchases.”

Fortune magazine issued, at the end of 2005, home value appreciation projections for the nation’s 100 largest metro areas.  They project Philadelphia’s real estate market to grow by 5.10% in 2006.

The take-home message: buy now.

Affordability

We understand that as an investor, you’re concerned about affordability for several reasons:

1. You want to buy low.
2. You want to be able to cash in on (sell) your investment at a high price.

Philadelphia’s housing cost-to-income ratio is 31%, compared to 53% in Washington, D.C. and 72% in New York City, meaning that Philadelphia is one of the most affordable cities on the East Coast.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the median home price in Philadelphia in April, 2006 was $218,300.  Take a look at the following table, which reveals median home prices in cities near Philadelphia:

Aesthetic

Even though you may not plan to live in Philadelphia, if you’re looking to buy real estate there, you hope someone does.  And while appreciation and affordability are important factors in the decision about where to move, so is aesthetics.

The City of Brotherly love, as Philadelphia is known, boasts a variety of historical and modern cultural attractions.  As the second U.S. capitol and the site of the ratification of the Constitution, Philadelphia is an important part of our national heritage as well as – of course – the great cheesesteak sandwich’s namesake.  And Philadelphia has just been named by National Geographic as America’s “Next Great City.”