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 at numbers year-to-date so far for the Island so thought I’d share.  Overall, we’re up in the number of single-family homes sold by 159% over this same time last year.   Here’s a chart showing a breakdown of sold transactions by area:

For condo sales, which have been trending lower, total Island transactions are up up by about 87% to last year.  Here’s how it looks  in units by area on the Island…

See, people are buying homes!  Some more trend analysis to come!

]]> http://midishaw.com/st-simons-island-real-estate-sales-stats/feed/ 0 http://midishaw.com/market-stats-for-st-simons-island-brunswick/ http://midishaw.com/market-stats-for-st-simons-island-brunswick/#comments Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:07:34 +0000 Midi http://midishaw.com/?p=1395

While Island sales are still down by half of what they were for this same time period when compared to the peak market in 2006, the numbers I pulled today are fairly positive.

In looking at sales in our area from the beginning of the year to today, April 26th – the numbers fall out like so:

St Simons Island

Single Family: Overall, the number of sales on the Island is up 258% with 43 closed transactions versus only 12 this time last year.  The average asking price was up 48.2% at around $615,000 with sales averaging $515,000, up 38.9% to last  year’s numbers. The average Days on Market (DOM) was flat at 230 days from list to close.  The list to sale percentage is down slightly from 89.3% last year to 83.7% this year.  This means that seller’s on average sold their homes for 83.7% of their asking price.

Looking at the various sections that make up the Island – the South (S1) end saw the greatest increase in sales at over 600% to last year.  Traditionally the most active part of the Island due to it’s proximity to the beach and Village, S1 saw 14 closing this year as opposed to only two last year.  Average asking price was about $1.0 million – up 96.1% from last year’s average which was around the half million mark. The average sale price was $838,000, up 112.2% from last year’s average of about $395,000.

Condos:  Condo sales are up 66.7% from last year with 25 closed transaction so far this year.  Compared to this same time frame during one of our busier years, this is not that far off from the 35 transactions closed for this same time frame in 2006.  Keep in mind that 1st quarter is traditionally quiet here.  Average asking price is up 51.7% with an average list price of $388,000 and the average sale price is up 56.3% with a sale averaging $370,000.  DOM is actually up 9% while the list to sale ratio is up slightly by 3% which means sellers of condos are getting 97% of their asking price. One possible explanation is that condos, having suffered greatly as the resort/second home market languished under the pressures of this economic downturn, sellers have priced their condos more realistically.

Once again, the South end of the Island saw the most activity with 18 closings on condos during this reporting period.  The average list price was around $460,000, average sale price around $440,000 – which means sellers got about 91% of their asking price.  DOM in this area did quite well at an average of 190 days, down from 215 a year ago for a drop of 11.6%.

Brunswick/Mainland Glynn

Sales in Brunswick has been a bit more stable.  However, there are a great deal of foreclosures still being worked through here.  All in all, the area is up 18.3% in the number of closed transactions with 110 closings so far this year.  The average list price is $161,000, down only about 1.3% from last year.  This is down about 24% from where it was at the height of our market when average list prices rose over $200 at around $214,000.  Average sale prices are down only 1.8% at around $149,000…also down almost 29% to the peak market.

The word that I’ve been hearing from outside of this area as well as agents within my own market is that buyers with things to sell in other areas are getting their properties under contract.  This bodes well for us here as we rely heavily on people relocating from other parts of the state and country and as long as they were unable to sell in their own market, they were unable to buy in ours.

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!

]]> http://midishaw.com/sign-of-the-times/feed/ 0 http://midishaw.com/octobers-economic-indicators-broken-down/ http://midishaw.com/octobers-economic-indicators-broken-down/#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:31:35 +0000 Midi http://midishaw.com/?p=1124

Just got an interesting email from Steve Nimmer, our local Coldwell Banker Mortgage Rep and in reviewing it, I really appreciated the breakdown and explanation of when these various reports came out and what they meant.  So, since Steve sent this to us to share with our clients – I thought share them with anyone who might find them interesting to help understand all the elements that go into helping us prognosticate on the economy and translate things back into how we think the real estate market might be afftected, afterall, it’s all inter-related….

According to Steve:

Tuesday

• The first report of the week is one of the more important ones. October’s Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) will be posted late Tuesday morning. This Conference Board index gives us a measurement of consumer willingness to spend. It is expected to show a small increase in confidence from last month’s 53.1 reading, indicating that consumers are a little more likely to make large purchases in the near future than last month

Wednesday

• Wednesday morning the Commerce Department will post Durable Goods Orders for September. This report gives us a measurement of manufacturing sector strength by tracking orders at U.S. factories for big-ticket items
• Also Wednesday is the release of September’s New Home Sales. This data covers the remaining 15% of home sales that last week’s Existing Home Sales report tracked and is this week’s least important data

Thursday

• Reading of the 3rd Quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) early Thursday morning. The GDP is considered to be the benchmark measurement of economic growth because it is the sum of all goods and services produced in the U.S. and therefore is likely to have a major impact on the financial markets and mortgage pricing. There are three versions of this report, each a month apart. Thursday’s release is the first and usually has the biggest impact on the markets

Friday (3 reports)

• The first is the 3rd Quarter Employment Cost Index (ECI), which tracks employer costs for salaries and benefits
• September’s Personal Income and Outlays report will also be posted early Friday. This data gives us an indication of consumer ability to spend and current spending habits. It is important to the markets because consumer spending makes up two-thirds of the U.S. economy
• 10:00 AM ET, the University of Michigan updates their Index of Consumer Sentiment for this month. This index is moderately important because it helps us measure consumer confidence, which is believed to indicate consumers’ willingness to spend

Thanks to Steve Nimmer for this great breakdown of our economic indicators and what they all mean! Now we know!

Looking at some stats since we’re now officially into 4th Quarter of 2009.  Here’s a quick glance at the list price/actual sold trend for St Simons Island going back to the beginning of 2008.

Obviously, home prices are dropping but they seem to have leveled off to a certain extent, the largest drop being experienced between 2nd and 3rd quarter of 2008.  Keep in mind these are average figures combining both Single Family homes and Condominiums.

Some other stats include actual unit sales trends… which shows that 1stQ 2009 was our worst  performing period since 2008 and that activity has been picking up since then.

It will be interesting to see how 4th quarter wraps up this year. We have a  couple of things going on during 4th quarter, one being that 4th quarter tends to be slow due to the holidays.  This year, however, we have the Federal Tax Credit which currently applies to homes purchased before Dec. 1… statistics show that the tax credit is a factor in getting people off the fence. The National Association of REALTORS® has been lobbying for the extension of this tax credit into next year.  Not sure how many first-time homebuyers are actually buying on the Island… but there is increased activity with the growing number of foreclosures around the community.  Foreclosures… that’s a topic for another post altogether!