It's the economy, stupid or jobs, jobs, jobs
There is a cure for the housing market. It's jobs, jobs, jobs and not the artificial stimuli or government programs designed to prop up the ailing housing market.
And that's probably why the Charleston real estate market is doing better than much of what you hear or read from the media. Take August 2010 Charleston home sales which while coming in 11.8 percent lower than compared to August 2009 were still pretty decent. 672 home sales (and probably a few more when the stragglers finally enter the sold data in the Charleston MLS) compared to 762 last year when the home buyer tax credit was available.
Median prices are up about $10,000 indicating that more mid priced and luxury homes are selling compared to last year when the Charleston housing market was dominated by first time home buyers. But don't be fooled by the median price, it doesn't necessarily mean that your home increased in value, it just means that the mix of home sold shifted a little bit toward more expensive homes.
But that doesn't mean that Charleston is out of the woods and all is well, it's just a little better off here than elsewhere. My phone 843.343.3004 isn't ringing quite as much as it should and traffic to my website is off a little so anyone reading this who wants to buy or sell a home in Charleston can certainly get in touch with me pretty easily.
So back to "It's the economy, stupid", first popularized during the Clinton campaign vs. George H. W. Bush in 1992 and of course, since people vote with their wallets and because the economy was in a recession, Clinton won.
David Streitfeld writes for the NY Times and in my opinion has to be the most negative reporter on housing in the country. Once again, he "pens" another gem, Housing woes bring a new cry, let the market fall.
"The unexpectedly deep plunge in home sales this summer is likely to force the Obama administration to choose between future homeowners and current ones, a predicament officials had been eager to avoid.
Over the last 18 months, the administration has rolled out just about every program it could think of to prop up the ailing housing market ... The goal was to stabilize the market until a resurgent economy created new households that demanded places to live.
As the economy again sputters and potential buyers flee - July housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 - there is a growing sense of exhaustion with government intervention. Some economists and analysts are now urging a dose of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future homeowners: Let the housing market crash." (emphasis added)
After writing about the subject here, here and here, I'll wrap this up by saying "It's the economy, stupid" or jobs, jobs, jobs.