Sitting on the fence
August 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment
It seems to me that a lot of people are sitting on the fence these days not quite knowing what to do about buying or selling in the Charleston real estate market.
Turn on the television, read the newspaper (does anyone still do that) or read the news online and news about the problems in housing and financial institutions has to make you take pause.
And yet, while no one wants to make a bad investment, your house is more than just a financial investment, it is also your home, where you live, raise your family, entertain friends and family, create memories and much more.
Whether you realize it or not, even if you are renting, you are making a mortgage payment; but it is your landlord’s mortgage payment, not yours.
Photo courtesy of Flickr by pbo31.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate
Foreclosure news July 2008
August 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The latest foreclosure news is out and no significant changes are reported by RealtyTrac. A few more than last month, about double this month last year and South Carolina remains much better than the rest of the country ranking 34th.
While the Charleston real estate market has some foreclosure activity, it is thankfully still few and far between compared to markets with most housing activity focused on foreclosures.
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Long term thinking
August 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Last week when the stock market was as volatile as I can ever remember, I started thinking about the many comments regarding the housing market. There is no doubt that many people are postponing the purchase of a home because they are quite simply scared that prices may go down.
While sharp price declines have not really been the case in the Charleston real estate market, all the attention by the national media can’t help but impact your thinking.
But I wonder, why is it seemingly OK for stocks to go up and down by 2% or 3% in a day causing the value of your stock portfolio or your 401k to go up or down accordingly but everyone seems to hate the idea that the value of your home might go down by 2% or 3% in the next year.
Nothing goes up or down in a straight line and both stocks and housing have gone up over the long term. It requires long term thinking when buying either stocks or a home. And the best thing is … you can actually live in your home, you don’t even get a stock certificate to paper the walls in your home any more.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Charleston home prices
Charleston real estate market report, June 08 home prices
August 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Charleston home prices show a slight decline on both an average and median basis in single family homes under $600,000. This housing classification represents over 70% of all Charleston real estate transactions and is therefore the most important category to best understand market conditions and trends.
While the average price declined by 3.22% and the median price declined by 3.32%, the Charleston remains much healthier than many other housing markets around the country.
Prices continue to show increases for luxury Charleston homes and both clasifications of condos and townhomes.
Statistics compiled by Howard Arnoff using the Charleston MLS as the source of data, information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
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Charleston real estate market report, June 08 sales and inventory
July 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The left axis (red line) represents unit sales and you can clearly see the trend of fewer sales during the first half of this year compared to last year. The right axis (blue line) represents inventory which has remained at elevated levels.
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Charleston real estate market report, home prices May 2008
June 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Sometimes you just can’t make stuff up. All the talk in the media is how home prices are dropping faster than a rock (and a big rock, more like a boulder going downhill) and yet the Charleston real estate market continues to show prices actually increasing despite slower sales and high inventory levels. As I’ve said on several occasions, the law of supply and demand doesn’t seem to apply to Charleston home prices.
You’ll note increased unit sales in the luxury condo classification since a large development in Wild Dunes recently closed. It tends to “skew” the numbers somewhat just like several years ago when we saw a lot of condo conversions in the market and unit sales of lower priced condos were significantly higher than in previous years.
Statistics compiled by Howard Arnoff using the Charleston MLS as the source of data, information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
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Charleston median home prices 2000 to 2008
June 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The median price for homes in Charleston has climbed steadily during the decade (data is from May of each year) and while there hasn’t been much appreciation in the past 2 years, that is certainly better than what is being reported around the country.
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Charleston real estate, sales and inventory May 08
June 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Inventory remains high in the Charleston real estate market while sales remain below year ago levels. The surprise is that prices remain firm on both a median and average basis and I’ll be posting those numbers in the next day or two.
Sales are in red and correspond to the left axis and inventory is the blue line corresponding to the right axis.
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Charleston real estate market report, April 2008 home prices
June 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment
It appears the law of supply and demand hasn’t quite reached the Charleston real estate market as yet because with fewer sales and increasing inventory, you would think that prices might have declined a little more. And while anecdotal evidence does confirm pricing pressure, the statistics haven’t quite caught up as yet.
I use a running 12 month average for the past 12 months compared to the previous 12 months on the chart below. But for those of you who really want to see some price declines, the median home price in the Charleston real estate market declined from $210,000 in April 2007 to $199,900 in April 2008. The median price however is just the middle price of all recorded home sales and since there have been more sales of lower priced homes than higher priced properties, the median has declined while actual prices seem to have held up a little better.
Statistics compiled by Howard Arnoff using the Charleston MLS as the source of data, information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate
Charleston home sales and inventory
June 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment
An interesting chart showing sales and inventory for the Charleston real estate market from January 2007 through April 2008.
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