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Fort Wayne-area downsizers tend to go for smaller properties as a lifestyle choice, not because they need to, area housing experts say.
Jim Torres, president-elect of the Fort Wayne Area Association of Realtors, says he has had three or four clients in recent months looking for a smaller house, but all were facing retirement or health issues that limited their mobility, not economic constraints.
But he says the area’s ongoing foreclosure crisis and an increasing number of short sales have resulted in thousands of homeowners losing their homes and, presumably, going into smaller quarters.
But they are not tracked by Realtors because they typically don’t use real estate agents, Torres says. The foreclosed-upon are restricted by law from buying another home, and a short-seller has no down payment. Most people in those situations become renters or move in with relatives, he says.
New-home builders have been building smaller homes for several years, according to Maruine Holle, executive director of the Fort Wayne Home Builders Association.
The percentage of new homes at or less than $150,000 built in Allen County held within a few percenage points of 50 percent between 2003 and 2008, according to Allen County Building Department statistics. That’s the price range for villaminiums or single-family starter homes with two or possibly three bedrooms, Holle says.
About 70 percent of the county’s homes sold for less than $200,000 during that time.
Homes priced at $300,000 or more ranged between 8 percent and 13 percent of the market, with the peak in 2007, the same year that homes at or less than $150,000 dipped to 41 percent, the lowest point for them.
