Charleston real estate market report, sales and inventory, Dec 1, 2009
If anyone doubted the controversial first time home buyers tax credit didn't have an impact on Charleston home sales, a look at today's report (and an early preview of November sales results) should confirm it. Home sales in October were up over 20 percent compared to last October. November reported sales of 647 as of today are up over 27 percent from last year and don't forget there will always be additional sales reported to the Charleston MLS in the days and weeks ahead. As you might expect, most of the activity was at the lower price points but mid priced homes did have their best month this year. The Charleston luxury real estate market remains somewhat sluggish.
Statistics compiled by Howard Arnoff using the Charleston MLS as the source of data, information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Sales
Inventory
Inventory remains high especially for homes selling in the mid priced and luxury markets. While the chart looks better, actual inventory is only down about 500 units from last year. But don't forget that homes that are under contract but still contingent are still counted as active inventory. The absorption rate shows definite improvement and has been hovering around 10 months during the last six months for homes selling for less than $300,000.
Inventory is represented by the red line and corresponds to the left axis, the absorption rate is represented by the blue line and corresponds to the 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.