Originally Posted in FOX Carolina
BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) –
Construction materials and for sale signs are common sights around south Baton Rouge these days. And real estate agent Jane St. Amant says this is the first time since 2008 she’s seen so many of both.
“The market just consistently went down and now, I know since January of this year, we have increased our production by about 35 percent,” said St. Amant.
St. Amant says the improvement in the housing market this year is the result of buyers and developers shaking the financial anxiety of spending on houses and condos – and they’re all getting formerly hard-to-find dollars from banks.
She says for years, south Baton Rouge was an area buyers avoided because of high crime. Today, she says they see it as an extremely convenient part of town.
“Baton Rouge can only go south from now,” she added. “Absolutely, you have some other areas of Baton Rouge that are growing like crazy, but they do not have access to the interstates like we do.”
Brian Dantin with Dantin Bruce Developers says south Baton Rouge also has more room for growth and expansion – expansion that he says is, in some cases, is leading to healthy competition.
“Sometimes you’ve gotta see that there’s a house that needs to be torn down or something like that,” said Dantin. “So yeah, the competition is definitely getting harder and harder.”
St. Amant says she expects even more residential development around south Baton Rouge in the next few months with the completion of the L’Auberge Casino and workers there looking to buy in the area.