A year ago,  if a buyer asked me about five listings that had fallen out of the MLS, upon closer inspection, I would have found that those five listings had all expired or had been withdrawn by the owner.  The other day, however, I looked into five listings for one of my buyers and discovered that two had recently sold, two were under contract and only one had been withdrawn by the seller.

To top things off… of the other five properties I tried to show the same buyer, two of them were actually under contract when I called to set up appointments.  That hasn’t happened in a long while.

There had been a time during the ‘boom’ when every other property I called on to show would be under contract – many agents don’t bother to change the status of the listing and let them appear ‘active’ when in fact they are pending sales but that’s another story.  More recently, any active listings I’d call to show were pretty much all available and the agents sounded relieved someone wanted to show it at all.

I firmly believe it is an indication that the market is changing and activity is on the rise.  Just last week while sitting on the panel of the Glynn County Board of Equalization, one of the county appraisers, in defending the value of a property under appeal, cited several noteable land sales in the West Glynn area of the county where during the ‘boom’ growth had been rampant, but since the collapse, things had come to a halt.  Hearing about all the land sales out there and then encountering the increased activity here on the Island makes me feel that things are definitely shifting.

I’ll pull some numbers and perhaps make some sort of graph for a future post soon… stay tuned!

Spoke at the Kiwanis Club of Brunswick’s luncheon yesterday on behalf of the Golden Isles Association of REALTORS® and of course, the topic was real estate and what’s going on.  Thought I’d share the numbers here.

Essentially, I was looking more at activity versus prices – which I’ll get to later.  Here is a ten year activity trend and you can see for the Mainland where activity peaked and where we stand now.  It’s a bit tight but the main green line below tells the tale…

As you can see, activity peaked in 2006 then dropped drastically in 2008 / 2009 with the market’s near total collapse at the end of 2008 – can anyone say TARP?  Then, you can see the ups and downs more  normal for real estate though I bet you those ups and downs can be correlated with major economic news at the time.

Taking a look at St. Simons Island -

The constant ups and downs are common on the Island where sales trends follow a seasonal path.  1st and 4th Quarter then to be quiet while the heavier tourist months tend to show picked up activity.  This is common of the second home/resort market.  But notice when the low hit… the low REALLY hit.

But if this tells you anything – it’s that both paint a clear picture that the bottom was hit at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 and things, despite the ups and downs, are going back up.

So far in 2011:

• Single Family Sales  in Mainland Glynn is up 23.2%  with the average sale price down 16.8% to last year.
• Single Family Sales  on St. Simons Island is up 14.2% with the average sale price down 3.1% to last year.
• Condo sales on St. Simons Island is down 2.0% with the avergae sale price down 18.5% to last year.

Looking back at the what’s sold in our market for the year so far and decided to investigate just what percentage of the properties being sold are bank-owned/foreclosures.  According to the Golden Isles Multiple Listing Service, 192 properties were sold in our market.  Of those 192, approximately 54% of them were bank owned properties.  37% were sold through ‘normal’ sellers and 9% were offered as a potential short sale (whether or not the short sale actually happened is not known).

Of the bank-owned properties, the average list price was about $220,526 and the average sale price was about $194,310 which is about 88.1% of asking price.  Regular sales ran about 90.4% of asking price while potential Short Sale properties ran closest to asking at 94.9% of list price. (See below)

Keep in mind that the average price of the bank owned properties is due to the fact that 40% of the bank owned properties were those  listed at or below $100,000 while only 18% of the regular transactions were on properties under $100,000.

Of the 192 transactions that closed since the new year, 130 of them were for properties on the mainland areas of Brunswick,Glynn,McIntosh,Camden and Brantley counties while St. Simons Island, Sea Island and Jekyll Island transactions represented only 32% of the real estate sold.

Stay tuned for more analysis as we near the end of the first quarter!

I know a lot of folks in real estate are happy to see 2010 behind us… but viewing 2011 with a rather skeptical eye.  Me, I’ve been surprised to find that somewhere along the way, I’ve become an optimist.

I’m looking at 2011 with the belief that it will be a better year than 2010 was, because as tough as 2010 was for the real estate market in our local community, statistically, it was still far better than 2009 when this market seemed to hit absolute rock bottom.  So to me, from an analytical point of view,  it can only get better.

A few weeks ago, I was installed as president of the Golden Isles Association of REALTORS® for 2011, so perhaps my optimism is tainted by the position where I feel I have to put a positive face forward… perhaps I am. In all honesty,  however, I think that’s what all of us in real estate should be doing.  We need to send out the unified message to the public that we still have faith in home ownership, that we still believe in the American dream despite the beating it’s taken over the last few years, that we are in this profession because we are dedicated to helping people and improving our communities.

There is nothing worse than hearing a REALTOR® rattle off their litany of woes in public.  People hear it.  People believe it. It perpetuates the fear and doubt in the public psyche.  It does no one any good.

Just like a smile, optimism breeds optimism.  You know what I mean… you see a stranger and you smile.  99.9% of the time, that stranger will smile back.  So try it with optimism and see what happens.

Happy Optimistic 2011 Everyone!!!

That's me getting installed as 2011 President by John A. Kaufmann, a member emeritus for our Association. Special thanks to Amy Mooney for this photo!

2010 is over and here are some market statistics to carry you into the new year!  As you can see below, the number of transactions for the most part are up but prices have dropped slightly.  I believe  much of this is due to the fact that many buyers are in a foreclosure frenzy – taking advantage of banks eager to let loose their inventory of foreclosed properties.

If you’re in the market to buy during this time, please do not forget that many properties for sale that are not offered by banks are very well priced and are worth consideration.  I say this because I have a listing where the seller is very attuned to the current market conditions and have priced their home very competitively.  Yet, I can’t tell you how many times someone has called and simply asked if this was a bank-owned property.  As soon as I answer no, they hang up.  They are under the misconception that the only bargains out there are foreclosures.  Not so!  And consider that when you buy a bank owned property, you are dealing with the bank as the seller.  This means they work on their own time tables and make you jump through lots of hoops.  You need a lot of patience and endurance to see these transactions to the end.

Now is a great time to buy if you are in the market for a great deal.  Just remember to work with a solid reputable mortgage lender – be aware of the time constraints involved in finalizing a loan.  Lenders are much more cautious these days and are requiring far more documentation and verifications!  I always recommend you work with a local lender who is involved in the real estate community in the area you are looking to buy.  They have more accountability to the community and can’t afford bad word of mouth if things go bad!  Far better than some faceless voice off an 800 number lender.

Talk to a REALTOR® who can give you the best advice on how to prepare for the buying process so you don’t waste any time!

As for 2011, we are all cautiously optimistic as we enter the new year.  The number of transactions prove that buyers are coming back into the market.  Don’t miss out!  Happy New Year everyone!

Some year to date numbers for anyone interested in what’s happening with St Simons Island real estate.

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Thought I begin posting weekly activity for the week from the information provided by The Golden Isles Multiple LIsting Service.  Hopefully, this will be a weekly posting so anyone interested in what’s happening with the market can get a quick snapshot each week here!

For the time period from 7/12 – 7/19:

New listings: 77

• Average price of new listings in the market: $308,184
• Median price of new listings in the market: $195,000
• Highest price: $2,600,000
• Lowest price: $32,000

Solds: 15

• Average sale price: $149,952
• Average list price: $166,247
• Highest price of a property sold: $415,000 (list price $499,000) for a lot in Hawkins Island on St Simons Island
• Lowest price of a property sold: $22,000 (list same) for a lot in Woodbine in North Camden County

Sales include all properties types in Brunswick, St Simons Island, Jekyll Island, Waverly & Woodbine.

Looking back over 2009 so far, you can see some interesting trends in what is selling in the Golden Isles. I took a peek at mainland Brunswick and broke the sales figures down to seller controlled sales and other entity controlled sale (such as banks, asset management co, relocation) and the trend sort of tells a story…

Take a look at this graph:

Over this past year, the mainland areas of Glynn County has closed anywhere from 21 to 52 homes.  Yes, that’s way down from 2008, but such is the market.  Of those sales, as you can see, the year started almost neck in neck with regular (that is to say, Seller controlled) to Corporate controlled sales (meaning banks, relocation companies etc.).

You might notice, however, that as the year wore on, the number of corporate controlled sales dropped from running about 48% to levels more in the 30% range of overall sales.  What does this mean?  It probably means that the Federal First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit impacted general sales, improving regular seller controlled sales.   I also think that the drop in seller controlled sales in November so far may be indicative of the holiday season’s approach and the extension of the Tax Credit into next year. The pressure is off for now, leaving the bargain hunting investors to pick up the foreclosure deals where they can find them.

The other thing to note here is that there is a directly proportional relationship to price points.  All the national statistics have reported that re-sale home prices have gone up steadily over the last three quarters.  Well, this sort of goes hand in hand with my graph.  I noticed in my analysis of the Brunswick market that the lower the home price range I was looking in, the better the odds that they would be mostly foreclosures.  As I moved into homes in the $200+ range, foreclosure rates dropped and then $400+ were very rare (although there were some out there!).  So as first timers bought regular homes, they stayed in the higher ranges of home prices… if this is the case, this might explain increases elsewhere.

Based on that, I can see how the foreclosure sale dominated market would make it seem as if home prices in general are down – but what I noticed around here in the Golden Isles is that a good chunk of the homes under foreclosure and owned by the banks are already in a lower price range to begin with.  It’s not as if $250K homes are selling for $70K… it’s more like a proliferation of $90K homes selling for $70K bringing overall housing sales figures down.  There are just more of those foreclosures than there are of the $400K foreclosures, so the numbers will be skewed that way.  Get it?

It’s amazing what the numbers can tell you…  Stay tuned for more as I delve into the Island side of things!

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