March 2009 Charleston housing report
Last month, I tucked the mid month Charleston housing report inside of another post. Now it's back in it's regular spot even if the middle of the month sometimes varies.
While sales activity improved in March from previous months, part of that is simply seasonal, sales are always stronger once spring starts but they are still down from the previous year. Inventory and absorption rates continue to be high.
And while prices have been under pressure for the past 6 months and on a year over year basis are down almost 10% on a median basis and over 15% on an average basis, much of the reason is that demand is much stronger at the lower price points of the market for several reasons.
There is a lot of interest by first time homebuyers (and those who have not owned a home for the past 3 years) to buy a home now because of the $8k income tax credit. And there are a lot of people who are interested in getting a good deal by buying lender owned properties which are selling for significantly below market value. Both of these factors are driving the reported sale prices down.
But of course, there is still a lot of pricing pressure due to high inventory levels so anyone who has their home listed for sale must be competitive and flexible. The days of outrageous listing prices are seemingly behind us.
Statistics compiled by Howard Arnoff using the Charleston MLS as the source of data, information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
An interesting chart: Median home prices for the Charleston real estate market over the past 6 months.
