Affordability, Affordability, Affordability!

It's looks like Lowcountry real estate might have a slightly different mantra this year with affordability trumping location, and those sales will get things going throughout the market. The blog is a little long again today, but even if you don't read the whole thing, be sure to read the last line! Remember here and now more than ever reasonable real estate is always a good investment!

"Though still mired in tepidity, the local housing market has its bright spots, and real estate experts pinpoint affordability — both of home prices and home loans — as the key to reigniting housing sales this year.

Cheryl Smithem, marketing director for Summerville Homes, said there has been a lot of interest in Baker Plantation, the company’s new community near the intersection of U.S Highway 52 and U.S. Highway 78. Homes there are priced from $199,000 to $239,000.

'There are a lot of people who are just beginning who want to buy a home and I think that’s why there’s a lot of movement in the lower part of the market,' Smithem said. 'They just want to get started.'

According to data from the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors, most home sales in Dorchester and Berkeley counties last month were in the $200,000 to $250,000 price range while most Charleston County sales were in the $300,000 to $350,000 range.

'If you’ve got a product under $400,000, it seems to be selling a little bit better,' agreed Philip Ford, vice president of the Trident Home Builders Association. 'There’s a lot of builders that are sitting in that over-$400,000 category, (including) custom builders, and that’s a problem from the banking standpoint. The higher the price point, the less buyers you have.'

In the midst of the sluggish housing market, the I’On Group in October found optimism when it launched sales of its first homes in Mixson, a new urban sustainable-development community in North Charleston.

Alyss Campaign, vice president for strategy and marketing for the I’on Group, said the company is building 29 homes in Mixson’s first phase and has 11 contracts. Homes are priced from the mid-$100,000s to the low $300,000s.

'We have a third of our homes under contract already, which we consider a great showing,' Campaign said. 'What we heard from the buyers was that they liked the price point and they trusted I’On Group and they really liked this type of walkable neighborhood.'

Teena Martindale, director of the Multiple Listing Service for the Trident Association of Realtors, agrees that the local housing market is heading for a rebound. 'I think it’s a fairly flat market right now and I think it will stay that way a little while, but I don’t think it will go down any further,' Martindale said.

She has studied home sales trends for the past 15 years based on MLS statistics, and it’s clear that what goes down always comes back up, she said. 'The further you go back, the more comfortable you can be with this market,' Martindale said. “You can see where we’ve had these trends before, and Charleston always recovers.'”

For the full Charleston Regional Business Journal article: http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/current/14_2/news/11222-1.html

The images above are from the Mixson Master Plan; for their website: http://www.insidemixson.com/home

For a look at the Mixson area and lots of other surprising features in the "affordable" market:
http://parkcircleonline.com/