It’s just over the half way point for 2015 and the housing market seems to be moving along at a steady pace, and depending on where you live most cities are improving well each month or quarter. Residential real estate in considered by most economists to be the leading indicator of how the economy is performing. According to USA Today 20 major American cities, home prices in May were about 4.9% higher than May of last year, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Although that sounds great its deceiving because that’s the same pace of growth as April, which surprised economists when it fell short of expected growth.
Locally here in my market of Charleston SC we are moving in the right direction at a good pace. Not too fast, but not slowly either. The leading indicators most real estate agents and economists follow for real estate all look good. For the month of July new listings, and sold listings are pretty much unchanged, which is the case for the last few months. Meaning our housing market here in Charleston isn’t too extreme in just one direction. Sold home prices are up about 10+/- % from April 2014, and the absorption rate has dropped from 6 months to just under 5. Days on the market has also dropped from an average of 96 to 66.
CHARLESTON TRI-COUNTY REAL ESTATE TRENDS
Nationally price increases of single-family homes have stalled a bit to 4-5% this year, said David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. He said he expects price increases to slow over the next two years, as wages rise to catch up with housing costs.
The Case-Shiller index tracks only the
re-sale prices of existing single-family homes. A separate report last week showed median sales prices of existing homes hitting a record high, increasing 6.5% year-over-year to $236,400, the National Association of Realtors said. Sales increased 3.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.49 million in June. Economists had forecast that homes sold at a 5.4 million annual rate, according to the median estimate of those surveyed by Bloomberg.
Data used from USAToday.com
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