Charleston South Carolina real estate market conditions
I've written often about the Charleston South Carolina real estate market conditions being better here than in many other markets around the country. That isn't to say that the Charleston market is not without its difficulties due to high inventory levels and fewer buyers than previously. However, there are very good reasons the Charleston real estate market continues to be one of the stronger markets in the country.
First and foremost, we live in a beautiful place and many people want to move here and our population is growing. In recent years, many businesses have been discovering the many benefits of locating facilities here and job growth has been very strong. Finally, many retirees are choosing to live on the Carolina coast rather than in Florida.
I noticed an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal Online (hat tip to Jay Thompson) that discussed just how bad the housing market is in some markets around the country. Here are a few highlights (or lowlights) and a great chart courtesy of WSJ Online.
Orlando, unit sales off 55% from a year ago, 28 months inventory of homes and condos.
Southern California, unit sales off 49% from a year ago.
Detroit, 24 months inventory of homes and condos, prices down 9.7% on average.
Miami, 57 months inventory of condos, 38 months inventory of homes.
Let's compare that to the current Charleston market conditions where you can find 10,003 available homes and condos on the market which equates to 11.25 months of inventory at the current sales pace. Inventory has increased 16.7% from a year ago but has been stable at these elevated levels for about 6 months. Prices have continued to be steady in the Charleston area with the median and average prices still slightly higher than a year ago.
The article mentioned that a strong housing market like Portland Oregon had 8.6 months of inventory so Charleston's 11.25 months, while high, is more comparable to the stronger markets than the weaker markets. Foreclosures were another subject in the article and once again, Charleston has been very fortunate to not have a lot of foreclosure activity.
My wife and I had lunch in a restaurant this past Saturday and generally it is the only day we read the Charleston Post and Courier. As it happened, the newspaper box outside the restaurant was out of papers but to our pleasant surprise, there were a few newspapers available to read inside. I noticed an interesting letter to the editor from a Master in Equity regarding foreclosures in Charleston area.
From the Charleston County website, "The Master-in-Equity facilitates relatively quick and inexpensive means of litigation resolution for non-jury matters. The Master hears most foreclosure cases and a substantial number of civil, non-jury matters as well."
In the letter, the author reiterated some of the same points that I've made. Charleston is a beautiful place, there is good job growth "we have experienced unprecedented growth in the region in the last five years" and there isn't excessive foreclosure activity compared to other parts of the country.
Unfortunately, because it wasn't my newspaper, I couldn't just cut out the article so that I could write about it later. The Post and Courier's website doesn't have Saturday's letters to the editor posted yet but I'll come back and update you when I can find it online.
Strike through above due to my noticing that nothing was said about job growth in his letter. Please find the UPDATE here.