Charleston real estate trends in 2009
What have been the most important trends in Charleston real estate thus far in 2009.
If the first thought that came to your mind was distressed property, I'd say you know your stuff. Let's face it, buyers today want a deal and buying distressed property might be the best way to get a good deal.
According to statistics available in the Charleston MLS (the usual disclaimer, information deemed reliable but not guaranteed), there have been 3533 residential units sold in the past 6 months throughout the Charleston real estate market. Of that number, 343 have been lender owned properties and 142 have been short sales.
Now here is an important part of the above disclaimer. Both lender owned and short sale are optional fields for Charleston real estate agents to enter in MLS listings. Some agents clearly indicate a foreclosure or a short sale and some don't. I don't know why but that's the way it is. But you can count on the fact that there were more.
Right now, there are 1256 properties that are under contract and contingent. Some of the contingencies are home inspections, financing or appraisals. But for short sales, the the Charleston MLS really helped by adding a contingency reason of 3rd party approval and I can't imagine any agent not entering that data when a short sale listing went under contract.
Currently, 298 or about 10% almost 25% [ sorry, that math was pretty dumb ;) ] of all contingent properties are indicated to be short sales. Of course, not all of them will be approved and not all will close but it does show you that there is certainly lots of buyer interest in short sales. And there are currently another 88 lender owned properties under contract but once again, because it is an optional field, there probably are even more.
One more trend to mention is that there have been a lot of first time homebuyers taking advantage of the $8k tax credit so the entry level price point has had much more activity than either mid priced or luxury priced homes this year. But many of the sellers to the entry level buyer are not necessarily "moving up" to a larger or more expensive home and that is pressuring prices and activity at the mid and higher price points.
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