"Demand is High at Sweed School" - Oh Really?

If you're not familiar with this project, Sweed School is a 14 home project (11 townhomes and 3 carriage homes) that uses an existing structure that was built back in 1911. I was on the interest list for this community because it looked very unique. Turns out, it is a pretty cool project and I like how they maintained the building when they built out the townhomes. When I received the grand opening email from them, I was really surprised at the prices. I replied to the message with my concern and stated that I felt they were around 75K too much. I know, I know, pretty snotty thing to do, but I felt I was providing a public service of sorts. The lowest priced townhome was 509K (1069 sq ft, 2bed, 2.5 bath) and they went up from there. These townhomes have no garages and no yards. Anywho, I was doing my usual checking around online the other day and noticed they still have half of the homes left to sell. When this project was ramping up, they were making it sound like people would be camped out for weeks just to get a look.

"Demand at SweedSchool is expected to be very high, so get pre-qualified now", was what many of the emails said. If this was in 2005, their messaging would have been accurate, but they sent this out after the downturn was in full-force. Hellooo...welcome to 2006. It looks like they did come down 40K on the one of the carriage homes, but I'm not sure where they are on the townhomes. I think they felt the uniqueness of the community was going to make it an easy sell and allow them to keep prices jacked up a bit.

Personally, I think you can get a lot more for your money, especially if you are looking for a condo type set up. Check out Azure off of Lakeville -- they are offering a 2 bed/2 for 405K. It's a new build and doesn't have the nostalgia and west side address of Sweed, but you get around 1000 sq feet, a pool, a clubhouse and you save about 100K.