If you live in the University City area, your participation is requested for Penn’s 2013 Retail Market Survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Division of Facilities and Real Estate Services. The survey has received a lot of responses from students and staff, but more input is sought from neighborhood residents.

The survey is designed to gather ideas and opinions for a new retail real estate master plan – information you share will be used to “evaluate retail opportunities on and off  campus and plan for future needs.” Just to clarify, the survey’s interest is retail businesses on Penn property, a sliver of the University City District. “We’re hoping some UCD residents utilize the Penn retail offerings as well,” says senior research associate Abbey Becker.

To access the survey please follow this link. Respondents who provide their email address will be entered in a drawing to win a gift certificate from a Penn merchant. NOTE: The survey closes after this Friday (March 15).

Penn’s Institute of Urban Research has released a report that confirms what everyone who has been house shopping in West Philadelphia already knows –  home prices in the Penn Alexander School catchment area have quadrupled since 1998.

The average home sale price in the catchment, which roughly runs from 40th Street to 47th and Sansom Street to Chester Avenue and parts of Woodland Avenue, has risen to about $430,000, a 211 percent increase since 1998. Home prices in the PAS catchment far outpace prices in the rest of the city. Home prices during the same period elsewhere in West Philadelphia and in University City have roughly doubled. Prices in Center City have risen 87 percent.

Average home prices in the Penn Alexander catchment are now roughly on par with properties in Center City.

Home prices have outpaced rent increases as well, which “suggests that the households in University City has shifted in composition from renters to owners,” according to the report.

The report credits the creation of the University City District, Penn’s mortgage program for employees and the Penn Alexander School with the rise in home prices.