Courtesy of Greater Saint Charles Convention & Visitors Bureau
Last year, 44 percent of all new homes in the metro area were built in St. Charles County, where land is cheaper than in much of St. Louis County. “More and more home-building has been shifting there in recent years,” says Pat Sullivan, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of St. Louis and Eastern Missouri. And though the area isn’t seeing developments on the same scale as those in the past—like New Town at St. Charles and WingHaven—he believes that could change.
“After a dramatic fall, we’re probably back up to between 40 and 45 percent of what might be considered normal volume of home-building, based on what has occurred in the past in this market,” he says. “There’s a lot of room for growth.” Sullivan expects most of that growth will occur from mid–St. Charles County to the west, in O’Fallon, Wentzville, and nearby unincorporated areas where flat land is plentiful.
Ken Hill, president of the board of the St. Charles County Association of Realtors, says there were 5,804 new sales last year, the most in St. Charles County since 2006. “It was a tremendous turnaround year,” he says, adding that the Wentzville and Francis-Howell school districts both saw a 23 percent increase in the number of houses sold from a year earlier. Affordability is a draw for many St. Louisans, with more than 78 percent of homes in St. Charles County selling for $250,000 or less in 2013.
Even mostly developed areas are seeing new buildings sprout up. “St. Peters actually had the highest rate of housing starts of all the cities in the county this last year,” says Greg Prestemon, president and CEO of the Economic Development Center of St. Charles County. “And I’ve been watching with a lot of interest what happens at the apartment project at the Streets of St. Charles,” he says, referring to the area’s large mixed-use development. “My understanding is that it’s already close to half-leased.”
