Charleston real estate market report, sales, inventory and home prices, March 4, 2010
This year, the Charleston real estate market report features a little different format by combining some of the charts and graphs as well as including Charleston home sales and inventory with home price statistics into one bigger and (hopefully) better market report.
Statistics compiled by Howard Arnoff using the Charleston MLS as the source of data, information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Home Prices
Looking at a year over year comparison should give you the best idea of housing trends in the Charleston real estate market and I would suggest taking note of the decline in prices paid per square foot more than the median or average sales price. First time home buyers made up a significant portion of sales in the past year and that distorted the decline in median and average sales price.
You can see that the market stabilized due to the home buyer tax credit for homes selling for less than $300,000 and that year over year, home sales stayed steady instead of declining as they had for the previous few years. And also take note of the list price to sales price, at higher price points, the sellers appear far more flexible to negotiate when getting an offer.
Sales and Inventory
The blue line represents 2008, the red line represents 2009 and the yellow dot (it will become a line when future months are included) represents 2010.
Inventory is represented by the red line and corresponds to the left axis and the absorption rate is represented by the blue line and corresponds to the right axis. Look for the absorption rate to go down again once sales pick up as expected during the spring selling season.
Sales, inventory and absorption rate for all homes and by price point.
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.