With First Quarter Results in, Purchasing Real Estate In Greensboro NC Still Makes Good Sense.
Updated July 2008

 With almost 800 homes sold (closed) in the first quarter of 2008, it reflects a 22% drop from this point in 2007 and a 5% drop from the 4th quarter of 2007.  There were 2486 homes on the market (currently 2675, a slight increase), which at the current rate represents just over a 12 month supply of inventory.  Meaning that if no other homes came on the market, it would take us 12 months to sell what we currently have for sale.  The average sales price was $188,619.  In 2007 there were just under 3500 houses sold, with an average of 92 days on market, sold for 93% of what it was listed for, was 2104 sf, had 1.5 floors, 2.4 baths, 1.8 garages, was 23 years old and 76% were in the city limits (34% of which were in NW Guilford County).  When you check the current inventory of house and perform a price breakdown, you can see that market segment with the fewest number of available houses are priced under $150K.  This represents the section of homes in our market that have the first time home buyers, which represent 42% of all home purchases.  This means that the section which has the smallest number of available homes also has the largest number of potential buyers.  Residential construction declined with a 25% decline in county issued building permits in the first 2 months.   Foreclosures rose by almost 12% from the same reporting period one year ago.  Since 1997 existing homes prices have risen on an annual average of 2.1 percent (hardly a real estate housing bubble by any stretch of the imagination).  

In a nutshell, the Greensboro NC housing market continues to be a good area to invest in real estate.  Buying opportunities are still prevalent and it's a good time to consider making a purchase. We have not been witness to super highs nor ridiculous lows which are portrayed in our media.  What we have seen are gradual increases and sometimes slight decreases which create the current buying opportunities that we are experiencing.