Currently there are 9840 homes for sale in the Charleston area.  There are 1838 homes pending sale, which represents a slight increase over the last week.  Thus far in August, the Charleston Tri-County has closed 497 homes.  We expect this month to end with sales down 5% over July (which was down over 27.5% year over year) and approximately the same sales pace downward as compared to July.

Economic data suggests we have roughly 2-3 more quarters of downward pressure (in average price ranges) before an equilibrium can be experienced.  The good news is there is still enough confidence in our market for Buyers to Buy and for Investors to Invest (me being one of them).  We will truly re...

Here are the current numbers:

A. Total Active Listings: 9,850 (Charleston, Dorchester and Berkeley County)

B. Total Homes Under Contract: 1,251

C. Total Homes Pending Sale: 505

D. Average Months Inventory (Total Homes for Sale/Sales for Past 30 Days): 15 Months

E. Average Days on Market for Sold Listings in the Past 30 Days: 128 Days

F. Average Percentage Difference Between Listing Price and Sales Price: 95.11%

G. Homes Sold in the Past 30 Days: 660

What do these numbers mean:

A. No real change here.  Last week we had 9,870 homes for sale. 

B. Under Contract homes are difficult to interpret in this market due to unusually high amount of defaults.  As I have said in earlier updat...

Monday Market Update:

Inventory is taking a slight dip, which is always a good thing. There are 9870 homes for sale in the Tri-County, down about 1% over the last 2 weeks.  This is also typical at the end of the Summer.  Pendings were stable week over week at 1783.  Sales are pacing slightly ahead of July, but not much.  The foregoing, would indicate to me that the worst of the "post tax-credit hangover" is behind us and now we are on a sustainable market path.  This, however, doesn't mean that there still is significant downward pressure on prices.  As a matter of fact, most of the homes closing now, are retreating from June numbers as we see more investors, more cash buyers and...

Rather than to go through another depressing overview of our market, I decided to spend my efforts this weekend looking at each listing, changing remarks, updating some photos and moving the prices up or down $10 (or as agreed with you in the last week, if a different amount).  The purpose of this exercise is to have each listing on the following hot-sheets for Monday:

"Photo Changed"
"Price Changed"
"New Information"

This is sort of like the fed dropping rates to Zero.  It's putting after-burners on an already strong marketing reach. 

In most cases, I've updated the remarks to better reflect what I think is the biggest challenge in today's market:  Other agents lack of conveying prop...

1789 pendings in MLS

648 closings in July verses 1027 in June.  Down nearly 50%.

Sales are pacing down 10% this month in August.

Average listing in all of Charleston receives 4-5 showings per month. 

Overall, showings in the market are down less than 10% from June to July.  However, showings are down 45% in July as compared to April.  This trend seems to indicate that the market showing level and the current sales pace are declining slightly or stable, but not rising.  I have no doubt, that without a rise in these trends and our pending index of 1789 units pending, we will begin to see more price declines in the coming months. 

The homes that have gone to contract in the past 30 day...

As of today, there are 9941 homes on the market in our Tri-County. 

There are 1858 homes pending/contingent in the MLS which indicates we have bottomed (it popped up some last week and a little more this week) in this recent downturn.  However, out our current pace of new contracts, I still expect prices to fall. 

We have closed 307 homes as of the 20th of this month; that represents a closed sales decline of 52.74%.  Ouch!

So, listing inventory is not rising or falling, sales are not growing or falling (as of the last two weeks), closed sales are down substantially.  What this mean?  We are neither gaining or losing traction (from a statistical perspective) in Charleston; we are ...

This week I thought I'd share with you some exciting news on Charleston, SC.  It's no secret our Residential Market is currently experiencing it's fair share of ups and downs.  it's easy to get bogged down the numbers, projections and the daily grind.  Here is some information to help you with the big picture for Charleston:

Charleston continues to rank in the Top 5 Favorite Cities in the United States and Canada (#3 according to Travel + Leisure Magazine). 

Within the Holy City:  Woodlands Inn ranked #2 on the Top 5 Inns in the US and Canada; Planters Inn earned the #6 ranking on the Top 10 Small City Hotels in the US and Canada; Charleston Place ranked #12 in Top 50 Larg...

9943 active listings.  A sign that late 2011 may trend us toward a more favorable market with flat prices and sustainable sales levels although, I see no real appreciation until 2012. 

1830 Pending Transactions (lower each week - but not falling as rapidly)

There were 214 closings in the first half of this month as compared to 430 in the same period in June, representing a 51% decrease in sales closed in July.  At this pace, we'll see our worst sales month this year, in July.  Absent of government supported initiatives, this shows there is still virtually no strength in real estate fundamentals or prices. 

Activity has picked up slightly and the pending index is not falling as muc...

There are presently 9971 Properties for sale in the CTARMLS.  (6959 are single family homes)
1820 properties are still pending to close (remember, about 30% of these fail). 
Approximately 600 new contracts were written in the month of June.  (The end of the month had a bump in new contracts)
1027 Properties close in June (as expected) - the biggest month of closings since 2007.  (July will likely see a 40% drop; my prediction)
30% of all sales were short-sales and foreclosures (estimate)
76% of all sales were under $300,000. 

It does appear that some of the "tax credit hangover" is beginning to wane.  This is a good thing.  We saw a noticeable increase in showing activity and web traffic...

In the last 30 days, we have seen a roller-coaster of market activity.  We are seeing record closings as compared to the last three-plus years, and, due to the tax credit, that trend is expected to continue through the end of this month.

There are presently 10,121 Active, 2057 pending properties in the CTAR  MLS, pending has fallen from a peak of 2550 on April 30. 

Overall activity on listings is 50% off from it's April Peak, and down about 25-30% from the last 12 month average.  This seriously concerns me.  And, we're back to some of the most ridiculous buyers I've seen.  If I may be candid, they are just asking for crazy things and have no moral integrity about their dealings (...

I thought you might be interested in reading this article.  I'm not trying to be a "Debbie Downer," but I do want you to be fully aware of the large shift going on in our industry right now (so that you can prepare for it's impact).  With The Board of Realtors and the other large companies reporting positive news, most of the public is being misled by the sales numbers.  That's good for public sentiment, but for our mutual purposes, I find more success in "reality." 

This article is a very accurate description of what is happening in Charleston now (better described by CNBC than me):

CNBC.com Article: US Housing Market Slows as Buyers Get Picky

Buyers are walking away when seller...

The market is "ever-so" slow right now.  Sales are still closing from the Tax-credit program and beyond giving us record reporting of sales closed (almost 900 in May - the highest month since 2007), however the slowdown is clear.  There are roughly 400 new contracts written in May and the same pace (if not a slight decline) is in the works for June.  Pendings have fallen below 2100 (a benchmark number that creates inventory balance in our market).  With only 200 +/- contracts written in June, there's no wonder the number of showings and offers is so low.  It's become "all price" again, which means "declines." 

Another indicator is the mortgage application numbers which are down ...

As anticipated, the homebuyer tax credit is having a profound impact on the National Market, both in a good way and bad way.

First, there were upwards of 900 sales in the Charleston Tri-County MLS closed in May, up from about 800 in April, the biggest two months in more than three years.  However, inventory has climbed back to 10,100 units (and now holding stable at that amount for the past three weeks), pendings have declined by 15% in the month of May.  What this latter number tells me is that the market added more homes than the consumption rate in May.  Better stated, we only wrote 493 NET-new contracts in May, as a Tri-County Market.  This means, we'll see a stable June, in ter...

The market is playing manic-depressive on us right now.  On the positive front, April sales were up 7.5% and nearly 850 homes sold in Charleston; that was the best sales month in three years.  Pending sales continue to remain high, although they are falling (2443 total - down from an April high of nearly 2550).  The real story lies in the total inventory.  Total inventory has zoomed back to 10,044 homes in the Charleston Tri County as I had predicted a few weeks back it would.  This number is still climbing and will probably rest at 10,250 or so (staying there most of the year) before retreating below 10,000 for perhaps the last time this coming Winter.  All indications suggest ...

Market data has remained relatively stable this week; the only new item to note is an obvious slowdown in the number of showings and new pending contracts as compared, weekly,  to the past four weeks.   While this is a notable slowdown, its far from a "plummet."  The coming weeks will be very telling.

In my experience, I found that instead of focusing on the slowdown, we best prepare for it as we've done throughout this crisis.  There are two main ways to do this:  Price improvements and marketing improvements.

On the marketing front, we have just signed a one-year contract with Zillow to showcase all of our listings at the top of their searches.  We already do this on Realtor.c...

According to RealtyTrac, there are presently around 3784 foreclosures in the Charleston area.  These are properties that are scheduled for auction, have a pre-foreclosure filing or are bank-owned. 

Generally, the average home in Charleston has declined by 5% in the past year.  The average home over $500k has declined by 10% (since April 2009).  Predictions are that home prices will fall approximately another 5% before we hit a firm bottom. 

There were approximately 700 closings in April 2010 (unofficial) in our market.  That's a 21% increase over 2009, almost all of which is attributed to the tax credit.  As a better barometer of the market, there were 79 closings over $450,000 (t...

While it may not always seem as such in my emails/updates, I am typically an optimist when it comes to Real Estate.  And, long term, I have no doubt that real estate from today forward is a wise and wonderful investment.  The issue that I face is that most of my sellers didn't buy in "today's" market, therefore the questions becomes, "Is it worth while to hold onto a property that is upside down, depreciating or otherwise no longer desired?'  For some people the answer is yes, but as needs change both personally and financially, the time to sell becomes "now" for many. 

Thus, in looking at the next three years, I always maintain a very strong sense of caution in my advisement (o...

The market continues to show signs of stronger activity.  While actual closings and actual listings (the real indicators) are still very weak (listings are still climbing back near historic highs) (sales closed are still at near historic lows).  There also seems to be a growing consensus that we are poised for a double dip housing market.  Bringing this closer to home, Forbes and others have ranked Charleston one of the top 5 stronger markets in the South or Nation (depending on the report).  In the event of a double-dip national market, this would point to the fact that Charleston will remain flat.  In the event of continued National Improvement, we should be able to find solve...

The official February tally is in, and it showed that we (the market) sold 521 homes in the Charleston MLS.  That's 20% more than this time last year and about the same percentage increase over January.  The sales number is growing, showing more than 575 homes sold in the past 30 days as of 3/14/2010.  We now have 2003 pending sales in the MLS, a number near the 3 year high of 2200 set last Summer.

What does this mean for you?  Homes are selling; it's all about price.  Traffic is substantially higher.  While your property hasn't sold yet, we are seeing a large number of cash buyers, investors and first time home buyers making up the bulk of our market.  The median sales price is u...

Presently there are 9635 listings for sale in the MLS.  There are 1856 pendings.  There were an estimated 454 closings in February, which represents a 10% increase over January and a huge decline from last October/November.

Overall sales pace this year is down 6.34% - this in it of itself is a very discouraging number.  However, we are finding positive balance in the fact that the inventory seems to have peaked at 10% below where it was this time last year (total properties listed).  This is a good sign. 

Average days on market is 133 and climbing slowing.

While Median sales price is up 5% in the past four months, I believe that is mostly driven by lower interest rates, not by ...