Home sales in the New Orleans Metropolitan Area are down, but overall sales figures are still good.
According to one real estate analyst, crime in New Orleans is depressing homebuying numbers in the city.
"It's certainly having an effect," real estate expert Arthur Sterbcow told WWL's Tommy Tucker. "It's not realistic to think that it's not."
Sterbcow says while home sales Uptown are doing fine, home sales in Lakeview are down. He told WWL's Tommy Tucker that a rash of car break-ins in that part of town are keeping people from moving to what normally would be a desirable neighborhood.
"The last set of numbers that I got on it were significantly less than--oh, let's pick an area--like Covington or Jefferson Parish or something like that," Sterbcow said. "We are seeing some relocations of existing people from Orleans. Lakeview . . . doesn't have the luster that it had before."
Meanwhile, home sales north of the lake are doing well.
"St. Tammany Parish seems to be doing real well," Sterbcow said. "Not the Slidell market so much, (but) the Mandeville, Covington, Lacombe, Abita Springs area, Folsom--just about everything in St. Tammany. Slidell is a little on the sluggish side."
Sterbcow also blames the New Orleans's failing infrastructure for helping drive residents out of the city and causing people moving to the area to buy homes in St. Tammany and Jefferson Parishes.
"The condition of the streets is the big thing that really gets people when they drive down and see broken water mains, water running down the streets, and things like that," Sterbcow added. "That all shows a lack of attention to infrastructure, and people wonder who's going to pay for that. If I move here, am I going to be the one responsible to pay for those years of neglect?"
