Center City District Releases 2009 Report

The Center City District just releases its 2009 State of Center City report. Overall, the report says that compared to the rest of the country, Center City is doing pretty well. Some key findings relating to the residential market in the report conclude:

• Home prices in Philadelphia declined just 10.1% from the market peak in 2006, compared to drops of 11.9% in New York, 12.8% in Boston, 13.7% in Chicago, 32.2% in Los Angeles, 38.3% in Miami, 39.3% in Las Vegas and 40.6% in Phoenix
• In Center City, where 44% of residents walk to work, average home prices declined by only 1.0% between 2006 and 2008 and are still 34% higher than 2003 averages
• Condo prices were 66% higher than in 2006
• Downtown homes sold by brokers in 2008 were on the market on average only 9 days longer than in 2006.
• So too, foreclosure rates in the city in 2008 were well under 1%, far below struggling areas like Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas; within the boundaries of the CCD, where over 22,000 people now live, there were only eight foreclosures in 2008

The whole report can be downloaded for free from the Center City District website. The Philadelphia Inquirer has a good synopsis of the report as well in today's paper.