State Of The Real Estate Market In Charleston In 2010 (North: sales, home sales)

[USCJoe]

The real estate market in the Charleston area in 2009 was challenging to say the least. Posts related to the state of the market on this forum certainly resulted in a number of replies from forum members, many of whom forecast a continued and steep decline in real estate prices in the Charleston area. The real estate market has not rebounded, but I believe has "held in there" relatively well considering the state of the economy and a continued prediction of housing and economic "doom and gloom" by the "experts." Whether the downward trend of real estate priced will continue or stabilize is anyone's guess.

As a Realtor, I am cautiously optimistic that the Charleston area has seen the worst of real estate price declines in 2009 and feel that the 2010 local real estate market may turn out to be flat or at least see a bit of more buying than we saw in 2009 in the mid to upper price ranges. However, as I have pointed out in the past, real estate prices in the Charleston area are directly affected by the real estate market in other parts of the country and the state of the local and national job market as well as the overall economy. Thus, I could be completely wrong.

At the end of last year I received an e-mail from a forum member asking about my evaluation of Belle Hall in general and the Hibben subsection in particular. He speculated that prices in this high end neighborhood were "going to fall to the $180 sqft. level across the board." He may very well be right. In order to provide an update with regards to homes on the market in "Hibben" and those that have sold in the past six months, I am setting forth two statistics charts/tables below for the information of any interested forum members or visitors.

[USCJoe]

This is a test post to see if a recent table I have put together to show recent home sales in the high end Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of I'On of which I have posted photos of in the past. The figures may be useful to gauge to some degree the state of the upper end real estate market in the Charleston area during the past six months. The below figures reflect home sales in I'On the past three months. Some of the homes/addresses have a link to the google street view" of the home that sold. This did not come out as a "table but should do.

Address List Price Sales Price Sales Date Square Feet

317 North Shelmore $525,000 $479,500 12/23/2009 2058

141 Jakes Lane $674,000 $652,500 11/23/2009 2351

45 N. Shellmore Lane $799,000 $770,000 11/16/2009 2698

102 Latitude Lane $795,000 $785,000 12/14/2009 2400

51 Hopetown $850,000 $790,000 11/19/2009 3890

15 Perseverance $919,284 $919,284 12/3/2009 3738

134 W. Shipyard $1,075,000 $970,000 11/12/2009 3658

19 Hopetown $1,295,000 $1,200,000 10/19/2009 3980

23 Frogmore $1,350,000 $1,235,000 11/25/2009 5259

40 Montrose $799,000 $750,000 01/08/2010 3000

126 Ionsborough $799,000 $735,000 01/29/2010 2200

[JimmyCh]

Pay attention to smaller homes in those areas, several of them are on contingent and will probably close in Fed or March.

[PapaJim]

Does it make $$$ sense to have a home built in this market Vs buying an existing home>

Thanks

[JimmyCh]

Probably, if you can find the land that's in good price range and area. Lands do not take much to take care of and some have very sticky prices. It is a well known order of hierarchy: In a declining housing market, builders can undercut current home owners, and banks can undercut builders . IMO, so if you don't mind the headache, buying a short-sell (I give up on REOs here in SC because it is a recourse state) is probably the best $$$ value, following by buying homes that sellers are willing to dump their equities and more to get their home sold, then building yourself, and finally buying at market price because you just love the house (trust me I still see people doing this) without discounting potential losses of this year and the following year.

P.S. I am not a realtor, so my opinions are simply opinions.