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.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Charleston home prices
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.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate
Charleston homes [not] for sale
July 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment
It’s a good idea when selling your home in today’s Charleston real estate market to make sure that your home is as available for buyers to see as possible. There is a lot of choices for buyers today and if they can’t view the home when they would like to see it, in many cases, it’s on to the next.
There are situations when the dogs might have to be put away or taken for a walk or you might want to straighten up your home from the mess the kids generally make. But the more available your home is to view, the better your chances of selling your home.
Recently, an amazing 3 homes out of 12 selected for viewings (out of 95 available meeting my clients’ criteria) could not be seen when calling for appointments.
In general, if a buyer can’t view your home, they generally are not going to want to buy it. Make sure your home doesn’t have a DO NOT ENTER sign, if it does, replace it with a traditional FOR SALE sign, it works much better.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Charleston homes for sale
The current state of real estate
July 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The Charleston real estate agents are trending towards sending lots of emails to all real estate agents on the Charleston MLS roster. They are touting their listings and I am noticing lots of price reductions, offers of bonuses to other agents and indications that the home is priced below a recent appraisal.
My personal opinion, this stuff doesn’t work to sell a house. After all, in my case, they are winding up in the spam folder of my inbox (and I had to dig them out to write this post). And wouldn’t it be better to just price the home for sale in the first place. Statistics show that homes priced properly from the start will sell for more money than a home that is overpriced and eventually reduced.
As to agent bonuses, I would prefer to see the price lowered by that amount to benefit the buyer. Much as I would like to make a little more commission when selling a home, I won’t be “bribed” by an offer of a bonus.
And finally, an appraisal has no value in resales, what a property might have been worth as a basis for a loan does not mean that a qualified buyer values it the same.
Bottom line, if you want to sell your home in Charleston, price it right from the start. Ask me how I’ll market your home for the best possible price in the shortest possible time and with the least inconvenience to you.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, marketing
Charleston property tax
July 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I work with many people who are considering relocation to Charleston, many from very high property tax states who are always concerned with how much property taxes are on any property that they are considering in the Charleston real estate market. The good news is that property taxes in South Carolina are generally quite low especially when compared with many other states.
Furthermore, once a home has been assessed, there are limits on increases to 15% every five years. But when a home transfers from one owner to another, the cap is removed and the assessor can raise the assessed value of your home to the current sales price.
But don’t worry; the property taxes will still be reasonable, just not as reasonable as your new neighbor who may have lived in his/her home for a number of years. And a point of sale property tax increase is how many places in the US reassess the value of your home. A good conservative rule of thumb is to estimate 1% of the sales price of your home for property taxes. The property taxes on a $200,000 home should be approximately $2000 and property taxes on a $500,000 home should be $5000.
If property taxes are important to you, you should consider getting a written estimate from the tax assessor prior to writing a contract on any home you are considering purchasing.
And make sure to apply for the 4% tax ratio on your principal residence, it will save you a lot of money.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Charleston South Carolina property tax
All your eggs in one basket
July 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I work with a lot of out of town clients, most of whom are considering relocation to Charleston. Many start their search very early in the process and request listing alerts that give them a very good idea of the Charleston real estate market. Sometimes they fall in love with a home well before they plan to move to Charleston.
A slightly different case this week. An out of town client has been online looking at and asking me further questions about a specific home in Charleston that he would like to purchase as investment property. His plans called for him to arrive this weekend to view it.
But just recently, if went under contract and he cancelled his plans. Then the contract suddenly fell through and his plans were back on and especially appealing was the fact that the price was reduced. But just yesterday, the home went under contract again.
Bottom line, whether you are planning to relocate to Charleston or just want to invest in Charleston real estate, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. There are lots of nice available properties, certainly more than the one you might have your eye on.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, relocation to Charleston
A sign of the times
July 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment
From the wouldn’t you know department, a foreclosure tour of distressed Charleston real estate. I can only wonder what the late night infomercials are currently recommending.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, foreclosures
Pricing your Charleston home to sell
July 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I probably overuse the phrase, “pricing to sell” when talking about proper pricing of Charleston homes for sale. So let me explain a little further about what I mean and how I go about the process of pricing to sell.
If you understand buyer psychology, you know that buyers searching for homes for sale have a price range in mind that they will concentrate their search for homes in.
Let’s use 2 ranges for this example, $300k to $350k and $350k to $400k. If you’ll go along with me for the moment that if every home for sale is priced right, it makes sense that a $345k home will be nicer than a $305k home and a $395k home will be nicer than a $355k home.
The next assumption that I’ll make is based on helping so many buyers purchase homes. Years of real estate experience has proven to me that buyers will generally buy at the higher end of their range rather than the lower end of their range. It isn’t that a buyer wants to spend more than necessary, it simply is that when comparing homes, the buyer will generally want the nicest possible home rather than the least expensive possible home.
While it’s only natural to want to sell your home for the highest possible price, you have to price your home with an understanding of how buyers search in order for your home to be seen and to give your home the best chance of being selected by a buyer.
Use the search ranges as your guide when pricing your Charleston home for sale. Rather than price your house at $305k, price it at $299,900 and it will be at the top of the range from $250k to $300k, not at the bottom of the range from $300k to $350k. The same is true for why you shouldn’t price at $355k but rather $349,900. And don’t forget the $25k and $75k price points in between so use $324,900 and $374,900 as well.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Charleston home prices
Sell cheap, buy cheaper
July 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I had the occasion to show some buyers from out of town who were considering relocation to the Charleston area several homes in my neighborhood.
White Gables is located in Summerville, a very popular Charleston suburb. White Gables is a traditional neighborhood with sidewalks, front porches and alleys behind the home to access the garage. It’s very old fashioned and very cute and it was the only neighborhood they were interested in seeing after viewing lots of homes online for the past few months.
But they have to sell their home in order to buy.
A few years ago, they started thinking about moving and did get a contract on their home but they backed out of the sale because they just didn’t feel right about selling and moving at the time. As is the case in many areas around the country, their home isn’t worth what it once was. But as I suggested to them, if you sell high, you’re going to buy high and that’s how it was several years ago. And if you sell for a little less, you’ll certainly be able to buy for a lot less.
They looked at several preowned homes but as I mentioned to them, if you write a contract contingent on the sale of your home, it won’t mean anything to the seller because the home will effectively be off the market awaiting the sale of your home. Think about how you would deal with an offer on your home that is contingent on the sale of your buyers home. And you can’t really make a really advantageous purchase when you are writing an offer contingent on the sale of your home.
As to new homes, the builder had several in inventory that had nice discounts because construction was complete and they were sitting unsold. But you can’t take advantage of that either because you might not want to have 2 mortgage payments.
So go home and sell. Price it right. Sell it cheap. Buy cheaper.
By the way, the home pictured above is the new Andover floor plan, one story living and a little larger than the popular Georgetown plan.
This one is a steal! If you are an unencumbered buyer.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, Summerville, White Gables
Flood zones, flood insurance
July 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I get asked by quite a few potential Charleston home buyers about flood zones and flood insurance. A client recently asked, “When a listing says a home in Mount Pleasant is in a flood zone, does that mean that many or most of those homes will get water coming into their house? Will rivers overflow and turn backyards into swimming pools? What is the major thing to look out for with flood problems?”
No is the real answer … but there is always a little more to the story.
The first thing you have to realize is that Charleston and Mount Pleasant is not like New Orleans in that it is not shaped like a saucer and below sea level with levees holding the water out.
You may have noticed the problems in the Midwest where the rivers in Iowa and elsewhere are far above flood stage, broke through levees and sandbags and wiped out lots of homes and sometimes even entire towns. This was referred to as a once in 500 year flood but unfortunately, this was the year. Most of those homeowners did not have flood insurance but they should have. Maybe they just didn’t know.
So back to Charleston. We start at sea level and get a little higher. Some homes are elevated construction where the home starts at the second level because it is built on fairly low land but not below sea level. The first floor is mostly a garage and storage for things you aren’t really worried about because that level is generally uninsurable.
The soil in the Charleston area is mostly sandy and absorbs and holds a lot of water. But when you get torrential rains or storm surge such as from a hurricane, and I’m speaking of a big one like Hugo in ‘89 or other famous hurricanes like Katrina or Andrew, you can have water problems.
A lot of the problems with insurance claims from Katrina are that the insurance carriers claimed that water caused the problem, not the wind. Which came first, the water or the wind to cause the damage. The point is important because wind is covered under your homeowner’s hazard policy and water is only covered if you have flood insurance.
So you buy flood insurance. If you are not in a flood zone, then it’s pretty inexpensive, maybe $300 – $400 per year. If you are in a flood zone, again, it will depend on the zone and the elevation and it might be $400 – $500 on the low end but it could be $1000 or more depending on the elevation and the value of the house as well.
I personally don’t live in a flood zone but you can be assured that I have flood insurance. And it’s a smart thing no matter where in the country you might live. Check out the FEMA website for more information. Water is the biggest cause of damage, period. we spend a lot of money on insurance protecting ourselves from fire, burglary, etc., but the biggest cause of damage by far is water. You don’t have to live in a flood zone for bad things to happen.
By the way, since we are in hurricane season, I also get a lot of questions from people wondering if I worry about a hurricane. While I of course do, I can honestly say that one of the best things about hurricanes is that you generally get a lot of notice as they move across the ocean. The forecasters have a pretty good idea where they will hit and you have time to make preparations and decisions which isn’t necessarily the case with tornadoes and earthquakes.
And while I think I’m well insured against disasters, let’s hope and pray we don’t have one to contend with.
Technorati Tags: Charleston real estate, flood zones, flood insurance, FEMA
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