Charlotte Housing Market: 2012 Anuual Report
The results are in for Charlotte's housing market performance in 2012. And these results are certainly something to feel positive about and hopefully augur well for the current year.
Some quick highlights of Charlotte's housing market performance:
- Housing inventory: buyer have about 27.7% fewer choices than just one year ago. At the end of the year Carolina MLS had 13,415 houses listed for sale--the lowest level in five years. Compare this to 25,584 houses listed for sale in 2008! Overall, our housing inventory has us in a seller's market in many parts of the Charlotte metro market and a balanced market in many others.*
- Closed Sales: closed sales were up 20.7% with only 15.1% of them being distressed sales (short sales/foreclusures/HUD). The number of closed sales (27,668) was almost to the 2008 level of closed sales (28,032).
- Pending Sales: with 30,343 pending sales as of December 31, 2012, this is the highest level in five years.
- New Listings: 2012 saw 46,016 new listings as compared with 67,786 in 2008.
- Average Sale Price: increased to 208,715 in 2012--also the highest since 2008 when the average sale price was $220,692.
- Days On Market/List to Close: down to 152 days in 2012--just 10 days more than the 142 days in 2008.
- Percent of Original List Price Received: in 2012 was 92%; again the highest percentage since 2008 when it was 93%.
*How do we figure out if it's a buyers or seller's market? Easy...
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Seller's Market: we are in seller's market when housing supply is 1-4 months. In a seller's market we presume that there are not enough homes to satisfy buyer demand and that prices will go up.
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Buyer's Market: we are in a buyer's market when housing supply is 7+ months. In a buyer's market the supply of homes for sales is higher than the demand and prices should go down.
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Balanced Market: we are in a balanced market when housing supply is 5-6 months. At this point prices remain steady but home values most likely are appreciating a bit.
It's hard not to be excited about these figures and with interest rates sitting at historic lows it would appear that the demand for housing will continue. What is particularly noteworthy is that this improvement in 2012 came about without any government assistance programs to stimulate housing. Here's to an even better 2013!
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