Real Estate

Showings are at an 18-month high in Mt. Pleasant and also in Dorchester County (Summerville), according to data compiled by Centralized Showing Service, which records all showings booked for REALTORS via the MLS. Charleston (West Ashley) and areas of Berkeley County also exhibit a similar patter (see graphs). Because showings are an indicator of the level of buyer interest in the market, it can be used as a predictor for future sales, which will normally show up 2-3 months later. Many factors may be contributing to this uptick in showings: Families are back from summer holidays, interest rates are still low, prices have continued to drop, and the $8,000 First-time Home Buyers' Tax Credit ...

REALTOR.com just completed a quarterly national homeownership survey that uncovered interesting findings that may be useful to know:

"===========================

Affordability

• 76.4% of consumers think a median-income family can only afford 50% or fewer of the homes for sale in their area. In reality, a family earning the national median income can afford nearly 75% of the homes for sale today on Realtor.com.

Foreclosure

• 20.1% who say they or someone they know may be facing foreclosure haven't taken steps to resolve their situation, while 22.4% haven't taken steps but plan to before the Administration's refinance program expires next year.

• While 66.3% of respondents said they...

I read this article in RealtyTimes recently - it has an encouraging forecast for our Charleston Area Market...

Hot Market: Charleston SC Sets Up For Strong Recovery

by M. Anthony Carr

If shrinking inventory and dropping sales prices are any indicator, Charleston, South Carolina is about to follow suit of housing markets such as Miami, Washington DC and Las Vegas, that have turned around in recent months. Homes available for sale in Charleston have dropped nearly 10 percent in the last month compared to a year ago.

The Charleston Trident Association of Realtors reported its inventory has dropped more than 1,000 units in April to just over 10,000 houses on the market. In addition, med...

In South Carolina, state law maintains that the REALTOR must represent at least one of the parties in the transaction (cannot be neutral). Consumers have the option to hire an agent (become a CLIENT with fiduciary responsibility from the agent) or remain a CUSTOMER (at arm's length) and represent him/herself in the transaction.

The LISTING AGENT always represents the seller. Sometimes a buyer will purchase a home with the help of the listing agent. In this case, known as DUAL agency, the agent assists both the buyer and the seller in the transaction. However, it is also possible that the buyers want an agent representing their interests exclusively (BUYER'S AGENT) , a service which ...

Buyers and sellers have agreed to terms and conditions, the buyers have done their inspections, repairs have been agreed and done by the seller, the attorney has done the title work, the appraisal has been done, everything seems going perfect to close on time...

Enter, the lender's UNDERWRITER.

During the housing boom that ended three years ago, underwriters were just an extra check, and they were not really very concerned about confirming every little detail on the loan application, the contract and the origin of the deposit money. Maybe that's one of the reasons why we are in this mess altogether!

This has changed! Today underwriters have (it seems) unlimited power to minutiously dis...

THE UPS AND DOWNS OF THE REAL ESTATE MARKET

So, you noticed that three years ago, your next door neighbors put their house on the market one morning, and by that afternoon they had multiple offers to choose from. Now you have been trying to sell your home for six months and there's just no action...!

The real estate market is unpredictable in the short term, since many factors (like interest rates, the amount of new homes being built and the economic health of the area) come into play. In the long term, the real estate market behaves just like other economic markets. It is a cyclical market (and in many places also seasonal). And it is driven by underlying supply and demand.

In a strong sell...

With home values fluctuating the way they have in the last three years, appraisers are under increasing scrutiny from government agencies, lenders and mortgage insurance companies. Three years ago it was relatively easy to conduct an appraisal based of recent comparables and escalating property values. Today, the market is very inconsistent, partially because distressed (such as short sales, foreclosures and lender-owned) properties skew the "normal" market and makes value prediction more of an art than a precise science.

What are appraisers looking for in this market? Here are some of the things they are looking for (I have received many calls from appraisers to find out information abo...