Despite rumors to the contrary
... buyers are buying and sellers are selling in the Charleston real estate market. Mortgages are available, rates are low and loans are closing.
Despite rumors to the contrary, banks are still loaning money to buyers and rates are once again below 6% for a 30 year fixed mortgage due somewhat to the sharp declines in stock prices over the past few months.
While there are many homes that have languished on the market despite price reductions and changing real estate agents, some sellers are actually heading to the attorney's office and closing on the sale of their home.
And despite rumors to the contrary, home price declines have not been as severe as the media seems to have reported either here in the Charleston real estate market or in many other cities around the country.
I was using Zillow's home price index the other day in a post and because they have coverage of 163 metro areas including breakdowns by city and zip code within most locations. I pointed out that according to Zillow, home prices in the Charleston metro area declined by 4.8% in the past year. Not really too bad considering.
Consider the United States with a decline of 9.7%, not pretty but let's take a look at some other areas as well.
A couple of other cities in the Southeast have similar declines as Charleston including Charlotte at -2.4% and Atlanta at -5.1%. That won't provide very much comfort for homeowners in these formerly overheated and currently the most distressed markets including Orlando -19.8%, Phoenix -19.4%, Las Vegas -24.6%, San Diego -14.7%, Stockton CA (apparently the foreclosure capital of the US) -40.4%. View all areas of the country at Zillow.
And I certainly don't want to review some of the declines in stock prices except to say, sharply down doesn't even begin to explain it but depending on what stock you might be talking about, losses of 50 percent to 90 percent to 99 percent are almost unbelievable.
And to think, it all started when John and Jane Doe bought a house with a subprime mortgage and got behind on their payments.