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Odds and ends

There were so many interesting tidbits of information in the past few days that I thought I might do a little recap of a few highlights.

First of all, we had a full moon with a lunar eclipse on Monday night and I'm so glad that I'm a morning person because I woke up and saw it at peak. My apologies for not having a great camera for the shot but it was beautiful. And did you ever notice as we move into fall, that full moons seem to be bigger and better at this time of year.

Time for a little real estate. The Case Shiller housing index came out and the headlines screamed the alarming numbers of the biggest and worst price decline in history. Of course, the fine print says that statistics only go back as far as 1987 and since most of the years have price increases, of course it would be the worst in history.

Now, a little more about that housing index. It is made up of either the 10 or 20 most populous cities in the country, not the entire country. 7 of the 20 cities actually still had price increases including Charlotte NC and Atlanta GA in the Southeast. Seattle maintained strong pricing as well. Losers were led by Detroit and other former overheated markets including Tampa, San Diego, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

All real estate is local and Charleston South Carolina real estate, while not escaping unscathed from the problems in the housing and mortgage markets had its 1st ever monthly decline in median prices for single family homes during the month of July at 1.5% since I've been presenting price statistics on this blog.

We very well may see a little more of a decline before the bottom but I'll remind everyone, they don't ring a bell to announce the bottom has now been reached and the market is going to turn up. One further point that I'd like to make is that it is always better to buy during a buyers market than a sellers market. You can buy low today, there are motivated sellers who are willing to negotiate. I'm starting to notice that the sellers are starting to understand the real value of their homes rather than their formerly lofty expectations.

Of course, most everyone has now seen Miss Teen South Carolina flubbing her interview, many of us have seen her on television and the Internet. My understanding is that she actually is a bit smarter than she demonstrated and she is very pretty but possibly a little nervous during the event. The SAT scores for South Carolina just came out and the state didn't do too well as usual but I noticed that the better high schools in the urban areas of the state did just fine especially Mount Pleasant and Summerville here in the Charleston area as well as others in Columbia or Greenville. The rural areas of the state seem to hold down the numbers and of course, Miss Teen South Carolina is the new poster child for a real need to improve education throughout the state.

 

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Published Wednesday, August 29, 2007 11:52 AM by Howard Arnoff

Comments

# re: Odds and ends

hi howard My wife and I were in charleston last week on vacation we decided that instead of moving  to florida South Carolina was a better choice.   We looked in Park West and saw some nice houses and prices look like they are about to fall.  We are also interested in downtown charleston since we are city people.  Our questions concern safety, we have three children; schools they seem subpar downtown and assimilation issues, we are from NYC and worry about resentment from the older established residents. Thank You.

Thursday, August 30, 2007 4:09 PM by peter cuff

# re: Odds and ends

Peter, thanks for stopping by and many people are skipping Florida for the Carolinas these days. Park West along with Dunes West and Rivertowne have wonderful homes and the school district is likely the best in the Charleston area, please go to my website and click on schools for the school reports for more info.

There is a lot of inventory available in Northern Mount Pleasant and while prices have not dropped on average, there are some motivated sellers so with excellent negotiation tactics, you can buy favorably.

As to downtown, I just showed downtown last week and while it is the most exciting part of Charleston South Carolina real estate, a reality check is in order. First of all, bring money, lots of it. You mentioned you are from NYC and I say the same thing when we visit up there, bring lots of money, we'll need it.

Most of the families downtown with children send them to private schools, that information is also available on my website.

As to assimilation issues, as they might say in NJ, fuhhgetttaboutitttt. Many of the residents in the Charleston area including downtown and Mount Pleasant are from elsewhere and many are from the Northeast. This is one of the friendliest places I have ever been, and believe me, I've lived across the country and visited the rest.  

Thursday, August 30, 2007 4:52 PM by Howard Arnoff
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