Dorchester Times: Dorchester Home Values 33% Below State Avg.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Dorchester Home Values 33% Below State Avg.

As staff members of the Times walked around town over the last several days, we counted only a handful of homes for sale. That's a good sign.

It also prompted us to ask, what's the real estate market like in Dorchester compared to surrounding towns and the rest of Nebraska?

According to real estate website Trulia.com, the average listing price for Dorchester homes currently on the market is $95,750.

This is compared to an average home price of nearly $103,000 in Wilber and nearly $108,000 in Crete -- two nearby cities that have paved streets, which typically enhance housing values.

For more comparison, the average listing price in Pleasant Dale is $119,900. In Seward, it's $143,257. In Lincoln, it's $171,269.

The average price of owner-occupied housing units in Dorchester is $59,200. That is compared to just over $88,000 statewide, meaning the average home in Dorchester is 33% less ($28,800) than the average Nebraska home.

To see the homes for sale in Dorchester, click here.

10 comments:

Cynical RichardMay 21, 2012 at 11:16 AM
here we goes agin................ times tryign to get paved streets........................ puke puke puke........................................................................... makes me sick..................................................... barf barf barf................................................................... i dont even live in town and i can smell the stink from here.............................................................
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AnonymousMay 21, 2012 at 3:59 PM
Interesting factoids.
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AnonymousMay 21, 2012 at 5:15 PM
well you have to think that Dorchester is just about on the edge of being to far to commute to Lincoln for work. That will make home values less also. Hate to say it but Dorchester is a bedroom town.
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AnonymousMay 21, 2012 at 5:38 PM
Richard is back! Huh, I thought Crusty Dick was probably dead by now. Anywho, good to know he still hates VD and everyone else.
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Carol OlsonMay 22, 2012 at 7:09 PM
To Cynical Richard: I live across the street from the house shown. One of the reasons it now has a "price reduced" sign is because some of the potential buyers came to see it after a snow/thaw. They drove half way down the street & backed all the way back to 11th as they knew they would get stuck, not a good impression when you're trying to sell a house. Who in their right mind would buy after experiencing that, tell me a paved street wouldn't have made a better impression & maybe a sale.
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BWMay 25, 2012 at 10:31 AM
We have a handful of leaders in this town (you know who you are) who are always volunteering in one way or another and always keeping 'the greater good' of our community in mind. Wish we had more of them. Let's encourage those folks and help others get more involved. Everyone needs skin in the game.
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AnonymousMay 25, 2012 at 1:12 PM
The economy has alot to do with the housing, not because there is no paving.
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TIRED OF THE STINKMay 25, 2012 at 2:24 PM
Paaaaaalease! To the commentor above, put down your crack pipe. Rewind your mind to 1980. I'm old enough to remember Dorchester back then very well. The homes were fairly new or newly remodeled and all the houses in town (except perhaps a half dozen) were neatly groomed and well kept. Now 30+ years later, almost no new homes and many of those same homes in ruins. You can't tell me that had we paved the streets in 1980 that we'd have the same situation today. I'm not gullible enough to believe that concrete streets would have made us a boom town, nor am I naive enough to believe that paved roads can save us now, but your head is stuck somewhere inside you so deep that you'll never see the sunlight. Don't think the rest of us are going to bury our heads in the same place.
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AnonymousMay 25, 2012 at 2:57 PM
to the stink, than why arent you living here, back in the eightys, they tired to pass it, some of us would like it, but I have not worked all my life to have to go indebt, the houses that are in bad shape, should be dealt with, that is up to the board, and attorney, plus Dorhcester is just like other towns, but not paved. Does that make our town, a dump no. Its a shame, that you cannot see the town, the way others do that live here. Its home.
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AnonymousMay 26, 2012 at 1:33 PM
I'm a Dorchester resident who finds this story a little shocking.

I knew our homes were below the state average but 1/3 less than the Nebraska home price average. Hmmmm. That concerns this housewife.
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."