Sumter, SC Real Estate Market Update, November 2007 Results

In my first blogs about the Sumter, SC real estate market, I covered units sold through October and the average number of days on the market.  This blog contains the updates for November 2007 and some further discussion about the Sumter Real Estate Market.

The number of units sold in November 2007 was 90 in Sumter County.  During the same month in 2006, 110 units were sold and 142 units were sold in 2005.  November 2004 had numbers very similar to 2007 with 91 units sold.  The data follows:

Days on market decreased from 143.1 for the 2007 average at the end of October to 142.8 for the average at the end of November.  The median home price stayed at $126,500 during November.

I hear quite frequently about all the homes available for sale in Sumter.  This is further proof that nothing is selling.  Right?  WRONG!  Our units closed year to date prove there are homes selling in our Sumter County.  If that is the case, why are there so many real estate signs everywhere?  In putting together information for this monthly update, I added another piece of data about the Sumter Market, the number of new listings.  The number of new listings over the past 3 years is very interesting.  The number of homes listed in 2007 has been significantly higher than the homes listed during the prior three years.  Below is a break down by month of the number of homes listed. 

You can see in the chart above that the number of homes listed in 2007 beats almost every month for the prior three years!  When you add this up in year to date numbers, the increase stands out much more.  Below is a chart showing the year to date number of homes listed:

As of November 30^th, 849 more homes have been listed than sold!   This leaves Sumter in a buyer's market and competition to sell tough.  It isn't impossible to sell a home, but a home seller has to be ready to compete for the available buyers.  Tune in again soon, for home selling tips and also some logical explanation of the increase in listings. 

(c) 2007 Kim Peasley-Parker,  All Rights Reserved