Charleston Real Estate Blog

Bad news is good news for mortgage rates. Courtesy of Bankrate, here is a one year chart of the 30 year fixed rate conventional mortgage and as you can clearly see, the trend has been your friend in the last year whether you are buying or refinancing a home in Charleston.  With the sovereign debt crisis in Europe driving investors into ...

A tale of distressed property in Charleston that illustrates the point that home values sometimes decline far more than the average because this home appears to be back to where it sold around 2002. Now, you don't really know what the condition of the property is that caused the price to be what I think would normally be pretty much below ...

There was better than expected news on existing home sales in November in large part due to the rush by first time home buyers to qualify for the $8k tax credit (since extended and expanded to existing home owners). Bloomberg reports "sales of existing U.S. homes in November rose to the highest level in almost three years as first-time ...

I'm sure that many Charleston real estate buyers are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the bottom to be reached before buying a home. One popular phrase is that no one wants to catch a falling knife. One week ago, I wrote about Wall Street's dollar menu.And while this is not investment advice, I'm starting to think about ...

RealtyTrac just released their 2008 foreclosure market report and foreclosure activity increased 81% in 2008 in the US. Let's look inside the numbers and look at the fact and fiction of what is happening with foreclosures across the country and here in the Charleston real estate market. As you'll notice in the chart below, there were ...

If you read the newspaper or turn on the television or check your news via the Internet, rising foreclosures is certainly one of the top stories. With all the bad news you would think that everyone in the country should be packing their stuff in anticipation of a knock on the door by the Sheriff. Katy Stech of the Post and Courier had the front ...

I've talked about rising foreclosures in the past few days, The Post and Courier headlined the growing problem on Saturday so let's cut to the chase and look at the numbers. Courtesy of RealtyTrac, in March, South Carolina ranked 35th of all the states, up from 37th in February. There were a total of 932 filings, up from 698 and one home ...

I get a number of inquiries from people who are interested in taking advantage of the current housing situation indicating that buying a foreclosure would be a good idea. And it might be, especially if condition doesn't matter to you because generally, the condition of the foreclosed property will be dismal at best. But just because the media ...

Brian Brady is a gifted writer, mortgage broker and more. I learn a lot when I read what he has to say. One of the biggest issues in housing today is affordability, or more specifically a lack of it. Whether it is the Charleston South Carolina real estate market or any other area of the country, the housing boom of the past years had many people ...

The other day, I promised an update to a mention made of a letter to the Editor by the Charleston County Master-in-Equity. As I've said on many occasions, the Charleston South Carolina real estate market is not without its difficulties but market conditions here are much better than in many other areas of the country. Charleston ...