In July, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 major cities rose 1.2 percent from June’s number to a reading of 143.05. Although home prices are still 13.3 percent below last July’s figures a year ago, the study also shows that the annual declines have slowed in all 20 cities for the sixth straight month.
Now, although this is certainly some encouraging news, home prices overall are still down roughly 33% from the numbers from mid-July 2006. So while we are starting to see some improvements in the housing market overall, there’s still a very long way to go before things are completely back.
The report shows that with the exception of the Las Vegas, Detroit, and Seattle areas home prices are rising across the country and I would say that that’s the trend I’m seeing here in the Fort Mill SC and Rock Hill SC area.
Yes, it’s still very much a buyer’s market, but you can slowly see home prices starting to increase ever so slightly. We’ve been very fortunate in that home prices never really took the nose dive experienced by other markets, but home buyer confidence is certainly returning which in turn means homes are selling closer to asking price than previously.
Hopefully this trend will continue, not just in the Fort Mill SC area, but nationwide as well. Home sales has always been a bit of a barometer of how well the economy is doing so the better the home market is, the better off our economy is!
Filed under Home Buyers, Home Sellers, Market Trends, News Reports by 
It appears as if the nationwide housing slide that we’ve experienced for the past 2 years may be coming to an end. Finally.
According to Bloomberg,
“Sales of existing U.S. homes jumped more than forecast in July to the highest level in almost two years. Purchases climbed 7.2 percent to a 5.24 million annual rate, the most since August 2007, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The gain was the biggest since records began in 1999. The median price fell 15 percent.”
As I’ve said all along, the Rock Hill SC and Fort Mill SC housing markets haven’t been hit as badly as other areas of the country, but we’ve certainly felt the reprocutions. Now with the national housing market appearing to rebound, I would expect that we’ll continue to see an increase in existing home sales.
There’s still quite a lot of homes for sale, but the pace at which homes are selling has slowly picked up the past few months. And now with the $8K tax credit coming to it’s end on November 1st many home buyers are scrambling around, trying to find their dream home in order to take advantage of this credit.
So, if you’ve been thinking about selling your home, now’s a GREAT time to put it on the market!
Filed under Buy Your Dream House, Carolina Real Estate, Fort Mill SC, Home Buyers, Home Sellers, Market Trends, News Reports, Rock Hill SC by
A report from today’s Charlotte Observer shows that jobs cuts in Mecklenburg County appear to be slowing down, which is definitely some good news.
“The number of initial unemployment-insurance claims fell last month, and the year-to-year increase was just 5 percent – compared with a 76 percent year-to-year jump in June, according to N.C. Employment Security Commission figures released Monday.”
While this is certainly good news to use locally in the Charlotte NC area, it mirrors information from across the country that the recession does appear to be slowing down. While there were still some 274,000 jobs lost in July, the unemployment percentage actually fell by .1% from June, which is the first time that number fell since April of 2008.
Obviously, this informatio boads well for the Rock Hill SC and Fort Mill SC areas as well as people continue to look to York County for an alternative to Charlotte NC and seeing the number of job losses slow down certainly helps our real estate market.
And in spite of all the bad news nationally, we’ve always enjoyed a relatively strong real estate market here in the Rock Hill SC – Fort Mill SC area and I don’t expect that to change any time soon!
Filed under Carolina Business News, Charlotte NC, Fort Mill SC, Life In the Carolinas, News Reports, Rock Hill SC by
Shaun Donovan, the secretary of the US Department of Housing Development announced yesterday morning at a meeting of realtors® that FHA lenders had decided to allow home buyers to use the $8K tax credit as part of their downpayments.
These important changes, which the National Association of Realtors® has been calling for, are a step towards trying to help stabilize a struggling housing market in many parts of the country. The $8K tax credit will be monetized through short-term bridge loans through FHA approved lenders, thus allowing potenial home buyers to gain access to the funds quicker.
This is certainly welcome news for home buyers and I’m certain that home sellers will be excited to know that this added incentive has been made available to those interested in purchasing their home!
Filed under Announcements, News Reports by
