First Quarter Home Sales up in Beaufort
The first
quarter of 2011 is in the books for Beaufort, SC, and buying opportunities
continue to abound throughout the Lowcountry.
We have learned to never say never in this business, but you have to wonder how much better the buying conditions are going to get. Interest rates continue to be available for under 5 percent, and the median home price in Beaufort slipped to $160,000 for the first quarter of 2011.
Some of the first quarter sale prices would have been hard to comprehend a few years ago, starting with the $6,597 sale of a Hilton Head Island condo. Hilton Head Island is in the area South of the Broad River, and is one of the premier resort areas in the Southeast.
The least expensive home sale North of the Broad, where the city of Beaufort is located, was a $21,500 sale in Seabrook, a beautiful, rural community about 12 minutes from downtown Beaufort, just past Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.
According to stats gleaned from the Beaufort Multiple Listing Service, 229 homes sales were notched between January 1 and March 31 of this year. This is a 3.5 percent increase from the 222 homes sold during the same time period in 2010.
This is the second straight year that home sales have been up in Beaufort, a good sign of impending recovery. In 2009, there were 153 first-quarter home sales.
Prices dipped about 6.4 percent, to $160,000 in the first quarter of this year, from a median sales price of $171,500 during the same time period in 2010. The median home sale in 2009 was $182,579, so we have seen an overall decrease of about 12 percent the past two years.
The depreciation is reflected in the median cost per square foot, from $101 in 2010, to $89 in 2011, about 12 percent. The median cost per square foot figure for 2009 was about $118.
The most expensive first-quarter sale was a $1.22 million ocean front home on Fripp Islnad, which would not have seemed likely a couple of years ago. And, make no bones about it, this home is located on the desirable southern end of the island and his its own private beach access.
The median home sold so far this year via the Beaufort MLS looks like this –
$160,000 sales price
1638 square feet
Built in 2000
3 bedrooms
2bathrooms.
PAST STRAWN REPORTS
Beaufort Transactions Up,
Values Not Yet Settled
By Keith Strawn
www.ExploreBeaufortRealEstate.com
The third quarter 2010 housing stats are in, and the trend in Beaufort, SC continues to be increased sales activity coupled with depreciation in home values.
From July 1 through Sept. 30, the Beaufort Multiple Listing Service (MLS) registered 255 home sales, an increase of about 20 percent from the 212 homes sold during the same time period in 2009.
The median price, however, slid from $187,750 in 2009, to $175,000 in 2010, a decline of about 6.5 percent. The median price is the middle number of all sales, as opposed to the average price, which is the total sales volume divided by number of sales.
Although the increase in sales is promising in terms of helping thin existing home inventory, many observers won’t point to a recovery until values begin to level off.
The single biggest growth area for our MLS is the area south of the Broad River, where 78 third quarter sales were tallied, an increase of 77 percent from the 44 sales registered during the same time period in 2009. This is largely a result of more and more banks trying to get maximum exposure by listing their Bluffton foreclosure properties with both the Hilton Head MLS and the Beaufort MLS.
Beaufort County is divided by the mile-wide Broad River. Beaufort lies north of the Broad, while our sister towns of Bluffton and Hilton Head lie to the south. At one time, the river was a psychological brick wall, in real estate terms, as many Beaufort Realtors rarely ventured south of the waterway.
Beaufort County is filling out between Beaufort and Bluffton, though, and more and more Realtors are doing increased amounts of business south of the Broad.
Sales also spiked on Lady’s Island, which abuts downtown Beaufort via the Woods Memorial Bridge, aka the “Swing Bridge.” The 2010 third quarter saw 51 sales, up from 32 in 2009. Lady’s Island, along with Burton, which is tucked in between Highway 21 and the Broad River, have been Beaufort’s predominant sites for new construction in recent years.
Neighborhoods like Habersham, Islands of Beaufort, Willow Point, Live Oaks and Mint Farm are just a few of the Burton communities with plenty of room to accommodate new construction, while Coosaw Point and Sommerset Point on Lady’s Island each feature new homes.
Also in the third quarter of 2010, homes sold in a median 140 days on the market (DOM), compared with 125 days in 2009.. Be careful with DOM figures, though, because “sold” DOM don’t always tell the whole story. For instance, you may have five homes which have sold this year in a neighborhood in a median 140 days, but what of the 15 other “active” listings in the neighborhood which have been listed for a median 180 days?
By Keith Strawn
www.ExploreBeaufortRealEstate.com
Could mortgage rates, which have hovered in the 5 range for months, go even lower? Yes, reported the Wall Street Journal last week. The Journal says U.S. homebuyers could benefit from the recent financial crisis in Europe, as jittery investors take their money out of those markets, and move them stateside.
Click here to read the article.
**These figures and information are deemed 99.9% accurate, but are always subject to errors and omissions.