Is Graduate Hospital Still Booming?

I was showing houses to Beth in the Graduate Hospital area in Philadelphia earlier this afternoon. Graduate Hospital is a neighborhood named for the hospital on the 1800 block of Lombard Street and has taken on the area from Broad Street to the Schuylkill River south of South Street to Washington Avenue. This large section of the city below Rittenhouse Square and Fitler Square has continued to thrive over the past year and remains one of the few areas where buyers and sellers continue to agree on pricing.

One indicator of that is the number of pending sales, which for 19147 (which includes all of this area, plus a substantial number of properties south of Washington) is 56. A better indicator, however, is market absorption.

Market Absorption
Market Absorption indicates the length of time it would take to sell all currently available properties, based on recent trends, if we were to freeze the market and not add any houses for sale. It’s a purely theoretical concept, but helps quantify the market. Absorption numbers of 6 months indicate a balanced market, and lower than 6 indicate a strong seller’s market. Over the past year absorption figures started rising above 6 months and even above 12 months, indicative of a strong buyer’s market.

The market absorption rate in 19146, based on the last quarter, is 12.65 months – it would take 12-13 months to exhaust the housing inventory if no other homes were put on the market, based on the demand for homes over the last quarter and the number of active listings today. Even though that number is clearly indicative of a buyer’s market, in context it still shows property moving quicker than in other neighborhoods. In Bella Vista, for example, the absorption figure is 15.7 months, and in Washington Square West/Society Hill it is 26.1 months.

Divan
The showings in Grad Hospital culminated with a rehabbed rowhome on the 2200 block of Carpenter Street (3BR/1.5Ba home priced at $274,900) which is down the street from Divan Turkish Kitchen & Bar, a wonderful Mediterranean restaurant that I first experienced about a year ago when selling a home on Christian Street. At that time we sampled, among other things Kayseri Manti, steamed lamb dumplings topped with a garlic yogurt sauce and mint. They were lovely, as were the kabobs, and the mixed appetizer plate which includes hummus, Turkish yogurt (Haydari), eggplant salad (Patlican Salatasi), eggplant and tomatos (Soslu Patlican) and stuffed grape leaves (Yaprak Sarmasi).

Effie's Restaurant
While talking about Mediterranean cuisine, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one of my favorite restaurants in Philadelphia – Effie’s. Located at 1127 Pine Street in Washington Square West, this BYOB has many of the usual Mediterranean staples, but also the best baby lamb chops in the city. My wife and I last visited in November – it had been more than a year since our last trip, and we were pleased to see that it was as good as ever, and well worth the inevitable long search for street parking in the neighborhood. We’re planning to return for date night again later this month.