Charleston real estate market report, sales and inventory, July 16, 2009
My apologies for being a little late with the Charleston real estate market report this month due to my 4th of July vacation at the beach and (thankfully, being very busy with clients) but at long last, here we go with the charts and graphs in a soothing summer aqua color.
Statistics compiled by Howard Arnoff using the Charleston MLS as the source of data, information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Charleston home sales
As is typical with the spring selling season, sales are improving and an early look at June shows even more improvement with 760 sales already recorded as of this morning. Just a quick note, when I pulled the data at the end of June (in the hopes of posting this during vacation), sales for May were at 708 and due to late data entry, are now at 722 so you can expect June sales to increase somewhat as well).
Once again, homes under $300k are showing the most strength due to first time homebuyers and generally lower prices of distressed properties.
(blue - 2007, red - 2008, yellow 2009)
Inventory and absorption rate
Although inventory appears to be sharply higher during the typical spring buildup, the actual increase is only 600 more properties for sale now compared to the first of the year. The good news is that the absorption rate is down sharply and once again, homes under $300k are showing the highest demand.
(red - inventory, left axis, blue - absorption rate, right axis)
The current inventory (inv) column reflects the number of active listings on the market on the 16th day of each month. The months of inventory (mo) column is equal to the current inventory divided by the monthly sales. This reflects how many months it would take to sell out of inventory at the current month’s rate of sale. It can also be referred to as the absorption rate.