Scary headlines, scary statistics
The S&P Case-Shiller Index is all the rage in the media these days and the headlines and the statistics simply look downright scary. And while the Charleston real estate market is no longer booming, Charleston home prices have held up rather well despite increasing inventory and declining unit sales.
While there are some foreclosures available to buy but because there are not lots of foreclosures, prices have not been pressured as much here as in other markets around the country. Of course, those pesky short sales are still listed in the Charleston MLS (even though you can't actually buy one without jumping through hoops and waiting months for an answer from the bank), prices remain flat with last year. (For the persnickety nitpickers who might be out there, the median price through July 24 actually dropped 0.24% - that's 1/4 of 1%).
But how do the charts look. 
Case-Shiller looks downright scary but as I have pointed out, the index is heavily weighted toward some of the most expensive real estate in many of the largest housing markets in the country which also happen to include the most distressed cities in California and Florida. After year after year of 15% to 20% gains, prices have obviously declined precipitously from that unsustainable run up in prices.
Now, the raw numbers for Charleston median home sales from 2000 through 2008.
A chart of Charleston median home prices by the value of the sale.
But now we can create a scary looking chart for Charleston home prices showing a big drop off from 2006 into 2007 and 2008 because in percentage terms, there was a smaller percentage increase in 2007 than the previous years and as pointed out above, even a very small percentage decline in median home prices from last year to this year (through July 24). But please note that with the large drop off, the left axis is just below zero, not the 16% illustrated by Case-Shiller.
And some of you may have noticed that I stopped running the RealtyTrac foreclosure news for the past few months. Frankly, I got a little tired of posting the same stuff month after month. Double the previous year. Most foreclosures in California. High rates in Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California. Michigan and Ohio have severe problems. blah, blah, blah. The story has not changed in months.
While it is a sad story, even sadder and more distressing is the news that a woman committed suicide just before her home was to be foreclosed upon and sent a fax suicide letter to the bank and is dead by the time police arrive. Tanta at Calculated Risk laments the media coverage of this tragedy.