Lowcountry Real Estate 2008 Outlook

I usually try to use this blog as a sort of main point and highlights summary of the topics addressed, but today I encourage you to follow the link and read the whole CRBJ article. There is really no substitute for seeing the variety of experts and their slightly different perspectives all support the same conclusion: the Lowcountry real estate market is going to be just fine in 2008! I've said it before and I'll say it again, here and now more than ever reasonable real estate is always a good investment!

"The housing market is the big question mark in today’s national economic picture, and that’s not expected to change much in early 2008. The future of the slumping housing market doesn’t look as bleak, however, to those with a critical eye on Lowcountry residential real estate.

'We’re not going to see the bottom that the national economy will see, because we have a lot of people who want to move here,' said Gettys Glaze of Sandlapper Real Estate. 'The problem is, the people that are moving here are from the Northeast and the Midwest, and they’re having trouble selling their homes.

Glaze anticipates his sales to be flat in 2008 compared with 2007. But he also said he thinks the downturn in the Lowcountry housing market has passed its low point. 'The builders and the new construction guys have slowed their starts, which puts less inventory into the market and the people that have re-sales aren’t competing with new construction as they have in the past three or four years. The bottom line is, we have a great place and a wonderful city and a lot of people want to live here.'

Along with balmy weather and the beach, the Lowcountry has another advantage that could help boost tepid home sales sooner rather than later: Jobs.

'Personal income just went up this quarter in South Carolina,' said Frank Hefner, chairman of the College of Charleston’s Department of Economics and Finance. 'It’s nice, normal growth, and the unemployment rate is still very low.' Hefner expects local housing starts to return to a normal growth pattern by mid-2008.

'It bodes well for our area that we haven’t seen a significant drop in home prices like other parts of the country, and we’ve brought in industry like Google,' said Philip Ford, vice president of the Charleston Trident Home Builders Association. 'In talking to some builders, (I’ve heard) things have picked up a little bit toward the end of the year, when things are usually pretty slow. Everybody’s predicting the market will come back up probably the second half of 2008. Some are even saying 2009. For this market, though, I think we’re looking at 2008.'

Jon Wiley, interim director of the College of Charleston’s Carter Center in Real Estate, said the local housing market has just come through a period of major growth and seems to be at a tipping point.

'Things have kind of leveled off here in the Lowcountry,' Wiley said. 'We haven’t seen the awful price declines like in the rest of the country, but things haven’t jumped up either. Credit conditions have changed…and we don’t have as many investors flooding the market with extra money, so something has to clear the market. If nothing changes, we will see more of the same, this delicate balance of uneasiness.'

Among the positive factors for the Lowcountry housing market is the number of empty nesters, retirees and baby boomers who want to move to the coast, Wiley said.

'I think that’s where Charleston has the advantage over other housing markets,' he said. 'I don’t feel terribly nervous. I just bought a house myself.'"

For the full Charleston Regional Business Journal article: http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/current/14_1/news/11105-1.html