the "homewood is more expensive per square foot than mountain brook" myth........ (Birmingham: houses)

[tacosman]

is just that.

What these people really mean is "the street in Edgewood(or hollywood.....and lets be honest by hollywood they mean laprado or laplaya lol) I most want to buy on is more expensive than Brookwood forest".

Which is a very different thing.

I've done the research using recent and historical sales, zillow valuations(which yes can be flawed), etc and there are only about 7 streets in edgewood and 4-5 in hollywood/mayfair combined where per sq ft prices are generally above 450/sq ft for good housing stock examples. There are far far more streets in mountain brook where that can be said.

Also keep in mind per sq ft is kind of a misleading metric to begin with. If someone buys an 1100 sq ft cottage for 520k in edgewood and tears it down($472/sq ft) to build a 3800 sq ft house for 1.6 million($421/sq ft), nobody would seriously believe that the former house is 'more expensive' in practical terms. And of course homewood has so many older small cottages that this would be skewed towards them.

So essentially the only way one comes to the conclusion that homewood is more expensive(even per sq ft) than mtn brook is to line up homewood's very best streets against mountain brook as a whole.

A more accurate comparison would be to take the top 5 streets in homewood and calculate those averages vs the top 5 streets in mtn brook. Then do the same for #6-15, #16-30, etc.....compare like with like. If you do that, Mountain brook I calculated to have a pretty significant edge(which gets bigger as you go down.). But make no mistake even the 'best' streets in each city show that mtn brook is more expensive in those comparisons.

I think this mistake is made because when a lot of people think of homewood they think of two types of houses- the old brick tudors on expansive lots on the best streets in hollywood, and the super cute updated bungalows on the best streets in edgewood.

But those two housing examples make up a small percentage of homewood overall. It completely ignores
west homewood, completely ignores 85% of hollywood, ignores most of mayfair, ignores that whole area of valley(with some really low end/crappy housing stock), ignores most of the area behind shades crest(before and after green springs), ignores the area as you are driving towards montgomery highway(where it bumps up against vestavia)......hell it even ignores a large percentage of homes in edgewood itself that don't have that same look/curb appeal.

I guess it doesn't matter......I just hear this phrase so many times and it's not really accurate lol.

Now I will stand up for homewood and say that all the pro-mtn brook people who exclaim mtn brook has a better school system because their test scores are higher are equally wrong. Mtn brook's test scores are only higher if you don't control for race/diversity.(and not doing so would be ridiculous). If you compare white students in mountain brook to white students in homewood(I use white because mtn brook really only has white students in large numbers with enough statistical power so you can't compare hispanics or african americans), you'll see that homewood does very well relative to mountain brook.

[steveklein]

Originally Posted by tacosman

is just that.

What these people really mean is "the street in Edgewood(or hollywood.....and lets be honest by hollywood they mean laprado or laplaya lol) I most want to buy on is more expensive than Brookwood forest".

Which is a very different thing.

I've done the research using recent and historical sales, zillow valuations(which yes can be flawed), etc and there are only about 7 streets in edgewood and 4-5 in hollywood/mayfair combined where per sq ft prices are generally above 450/sq ft for good housing stock examples. There are far far more streets in mountain brook where that can be said.

Also keep in mind per sq ft is kind of a misleading metric to begin with. If someone buys an 1100 sq ft cottage for 520k in edgewood and tears it down($472/sq ft) to build a 3800 sq ft house for 1.6 million($421/sq ft), nobody would seriously believe that the former house is 'more expensive' in practical terms. And of course homewood has so many older small cottages that this would be skewed towards them.

So essentially the only way one comes to the conclusion that homewood is more expensive(even per sq ft) than mtn brook is to line up homewood's very best streets against mountain brook as a whole.

A more accurate comparison would be to take the top 5 streets in homewood and calculate those averages vs the top 5 streets in mtn brook. Then do the same for #6-15, #16-30, etc.....compare like with like. If you do that, Mountain brook I calculated to have a pretty significant edge(which gets bigger as you go down.). But make no mistake even the 'best' streets in each city show that mtn brook is more expensive in those comparisons.

I think this mistake is made because when a lot of people think of homewood they think of two types of houses- the old brick tudors on expansive lots on the best streets in hollywood, and the super cute updated bungalows on the best streets in edgewood.

But those two housing examples make up a small percentage of homewood overall. It completely ignores
west homewood, completely ignores 85% of hollywood, ignores most of mayfair, ignores that whole area of valley(with some really low end/crappy housing stock), ignores most of the area behind shades crest(before and after green springs), ignores the area as you are driving towards montgomery highway(where it bumps up against vestavia)......hell it even ignores a large percentage of homes in edgewood itself that don't have that same look/curb appeal.

I guess it doesn't matter......I just hear this phrase so many times and it's not really accurate lol.

Now I will stand up for homewood and say that all the pro-mtn brook people who exclaim mtn brook has a better school system because their test scores are higher are equally wrong. Mtn brook's test scores are only higher if you don't control for race/diversity.(and not doing so would be ridiculous). If you compare white students in mountain brook to white students in homewood(I use white because mtn brook really only has white students in large numbers with enough statistical power so you can't compare hispanics or african americans), you'll see that homewood does very well relative to mountain brook.

please explain the last paragraph that you should "control for race/diversity" when it comes to assessing the school system? are you saying black people are not as smart as white people?

[tacosman]

Originally Posted by steveklein

please explain the last paragraph that you should "control for race/diversity" when it comes to assessing the school system? are you saying black people are not as smart as white people?

No, and that's an entirely separate argument and I'm not going to get into that(meaning why different races have different test scores, the roots and causes, etc). nothing good comes from those arguments. Thats a 50 page thread lol.....

But if you're parent and you're wondering "how will my child do in this school district vs that school district", of course you want to control for race. Just because we know how drastically different scores are depending on racial makeup of large populations.

furthermore, that parent's particular child isn't going to be a perfect representation of the makeup of the district. They are going to be a single individual. If, for example, they are a white student.......then I would want to see how the white MB student population fares against the white HW population. Because that's the most relevant comparison. And I believe both do very well here.

But controlling for race(and to a lesser extent SES as well, although we know that race has even more impact) is just one thing you have to do to draw any conclusions about how 'good' the districts performance is.

Show me in any school district and give me a breakdown of the
1) exact race numbers
2) exact SES makeup(to even include tertiary things like percentage of parents with a bachelors degree and above)

and you're going to be able to pin down the 'performance' of that school district within a very very narrow range.

Mountain Brook schools have really high test scores because 1) it's all white and 2) it's relatively wealthy

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The children of affluent white parents.....do very well in school. Especially if there is virtually no poverty(as in MB).

It doesn't mean I wouldn't be thrilled for my kid to go to MB. I would. Great school system.
But if you switched the demographic numbers(and gave MB a 30% or so urm population), their scores would be 'pretty good' instead of 'really good'. On average of course. And the teachers/adminstrators/etc would be just as good.

Thats why you have to control for race and SES.

Again, nothing in the above goes into the 'whys' of it at all. But the numbers are what the numbers are(for different racial groups, different SES classifications, etc) and you have to take that into account.

[OldBankhead]

I'm struggling to find any useful or exciting information in all this that will cause me to want to slap the taste out of someone's mouth on your behalf the next time I hear someone claim this Homewood over MB myth.

Is it not obvious when people say this they are talking about the very best of what Homewood has to offer? I thought it was. There are obviously edgier parts of West Homewood that they are NOT talking about.

There are a few streets in Birmingham that would rival or best both of them. Do you think I'm talking about Pratt City or Kingston? Do you feel the need to post up Nerdwallet or Redfin info on places like that because I had the audacity to make such a claim? If so, knock yourself out. Maybe somebody else will read it.

It's a nuanced and conditioned statement that needs context that most people understand.

[tacosman]

Originally Posted by OldBankhead

I'm struggling to find any useful or exciting information in all this that will cause me to want to slap the taste out of someone's mouth on your behalf the next time I hear someone claim this Homewood over MB myth.

Is it not obvious when people say this they are talking about the very best of what Homewood has to offer? I thought it was. There are obviously edgier parts of West Homewood that they are NOT talking about.

west homewood.....and 85% of the rest of homewood lol. btw west homewood(again using this cost per sq ft metric) isn't even close to being amongst the least expensive area of homewood now.

And no I don't think it is obvious. But let's say it is for argument sakes- in that case and if we're going to look at the cleanest properties with the most curb appeal on one of about 9 streets in homewood for a comparison, then the same has to be done for mountain brook. So if you compare "the very best of what homewood has to offer", homewood is still less expensive(per sq ft or any other metric).

I mean....is it true that there are examples of properties in homewood that are more expensive on a sq ft basis than some properties in Mtn brook? Sure, but using that ridiculously meaningless standard(ie not even comparing like to like), you can say the same thing about literally *any* area. I'm sure there are some properties in hoover that also are more expensive. Hell probably pelham too....at least a few properties lol.

The point is comparisons are always made like to like.

[OldBankhead]

Okay, bro.