Charleston Real Estate Blog

Unit sales are very interesting to report this month, not because very much has changed since sales are generally at lower levels than previous years. But there is one classification in the Charleston real estate market where sales increased and not by a little bit but by a lot and that is the sales of luxury condos. A large development, The ...

An interesting article and map of population growth and shifting migration trends courtesy of WSJ Online. While population growth is slowing but still substantial in Arizona and Nevada, it appears Florida has been more affected by the housing slowdown growing only 1.1% in the past year. Of note, the Southeast, led by North ...

I found an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal Online regarding signs of a housing market turnaround. While the article certainly points out many of the problems facing the housing industry today, I noticed that the headline wasn’t the “doom and gloom” so prevalent in the media today. Perhaps it is the influence of ...

Some highlights from the recently released report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. While economists remain upbeat about the long-term outlook of the residential real estate market, the near term is tainted by the uncertainty of future performance on loans set to readjust amid a struggling housing market. The ...

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) now forecasts a slightly larger price decline for both existing and new homes. The revised forecast for the National real estate market:median existing-home price will drop 1.3 percent median new-home price will drop 2.3 percent existing-home sales will drop 4.6 percent new-home sales will ...

No surprises in the latest numbers to come out of S&P Case-Shiller or data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on existing home sales. While Nationally syndicated writer, Lew Sichelman advised the real estate reading public to not pay too much attention to what he or his colleagues wrote concerning housing prices, the headline ...

The 10 city Case-Shiller index of housing prices was released and real estate prices have declined in January on a year over year basis. The headline is far more alarming than the actual news but we've discussed media coverage of this issue before. Interestingly, Charlotte North Carolina is considered one of the more favorable cities in the ...

At the top of page 2 every Saturday in the real estate section of Charleston's daily newspaper, The Post and Courier, Kenneth Harney writes for the Washington Post about real estate matters. The Tide is Turning  What's the shape of a post-bubble, post-correction real estate market? And more to the point: What does that ...

With all the talk about rising interest rates, you might be surprised to find mortgage rates at the low for all of 2006. While the article indicates a rate of 6.11%, that is the average rate and one of my preferred lenders is offering a 5.75% rate for 30 year fixed. You will also note that ARM's have not had much of a spread advantage since ...

The Charleston real estate market has been very strong for the past 5 years as have most places across the country. We did not have wild speculation and crazy price increases, rather a nice steady appreciation due to excellent job growth, a significant retirement population choosing to relocate to the Charleston area and a general relocation ...