Home > Blogs > Cal Griffin > The Edisto Beach Real Estate Advisor

Edisto Beach Real Estate-National Market update

By Cal Griffin

Real Estate Agent with The Edisto Beach Company.com SC# 60190

March 01, 2010 01:37 PM

INFO THAT HITS US WHERE WE LIVE New home sales fell 11.2% in January to a record low level. Existing home sales weren't very pretty either, down 7.2%, though they're UP 11.5% over a year ago. Let's remember that last Fall we all thought the tax credit was going away at the end of November. Many sales got pushed into October and November, causing sales drops the next two months. But the median new home price is down just 2.4% year over year and the average price is now UP 3.7%. For an existing home, the median price is unchanged from a year ago and the average price is UP 2.6%. More evidence home prices are stabilizing, with some analysts expecting modest gains for the year. Supporting this, the Case-Shiller home price index was UP 0.3% in December, its seventh straight monthly rise.

Even more interesting was the news that this has actually been a very good decade for home prices. From January 2000 to December 2009, prices were UP 46%, making residential real estate a clearly profitable investment. And that's not even factoring in the mortgage interest and real estate tax deductions homeowners get!

Finally, we've reported that the Fed will stop buying mortgage bonds at the end of this month and experts feared rates may edge up. Now analysts say mortgage rates might not move much at all. This stems from the fairly calm market reaction to last week's hike of the Fed's discount lending rate (which is NOT the key Fed funds rate). Seeing little or no move in today's low mortgage rates is good news for the near term.