One word to describe the Charleston real estate market for 2011 is GOOD. Home sales were higher year over year, inventory of homes available for sale has been trending down and is at its lowest level in almost 5 years and prices, while down were only slightly lower. And December was an absolutely outstanding month with sales sharply higher by 15 percent over 2010.
For the year, sales were almost 6 percent higher in 2011 than in 2010, inventory is down by 12 percent and the absorption rate is down 17 percent to just less than a 12 month supply. But in the most important price range of homes selling for less than $300,000 which make up over 75 percent of all activity, the absorption rate currently stands at just less than 9 months which is a big improvement over previous years. For those of you looking to buy, it's still a buyers market but it's not quite as dismal for home sellers any longer. As to home prices, foreclosures and short sales continue to exert downside pressure to pricing and I would expect that to continue through this year.
Taking a look at homes by price range, homes selling for less than $300,000 and homes selling between $300,000 and $600,000 did very well but after a very strong 2010, the luxury Charleston housing market of homes selling for more than $600,000 was down a little bit this year. But maybe not for long because there have already been 2 closings for cash this year at the very high end of the market ($4.2 million and $5.975 million respectively) and Medway Plantation, a $15 million dollar listing recently went under contract.
Statistics compiled by Howard Arnoff using the Charleston MLS as the source of data, information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Year to Year Comparison and Home Prices
You'll note that $ per square foot is no longer included in the year to year comparison. Unfortunately, there is a serious data error that completely distorts the price per square foot making it basically useless as a metric. If and when the error is discovered and corrected, I'll certainly bring it back.

Sales and Inventory
Homes Sales

Inventory
Inventory and Absorption Rate
Inventory is represented by the blue line and corresponds to the left axis, the absorption rate is represented by the red line and corresponds to the right axis.

Sales, Inventory and Absorption Rate for all homes and by price range

The current inventory (inv) column reflects the number of active listings on the market on the 16th day of each month. The months of inventory (mo) column is equal to the current inventory divided by the monthly sales. This reflects how many months it would take to sell out of inventory at the current month’s rate of sale. It can also be referred to as the absorption rate.