My fifth bi-monthly Lake Norman Friday Hot Sheet is here!
Above is a chart with Friday’s “hot sheet” numbers from the Charlotte Multiple Listing Services for all single family homes in Lake Norman (area 13). For comparison, I have provided numbers from three weeks ago and earlier this year. Here are some highlights:
Our pending and number of closed sales are identical to three weeks ago. While these are the lowest since April, because this includes Labor Day and back-to-school I see this as a sign that our market has stabilized a bit.
New listings were down to an all time low. Inventory is continuing to inch downward which is a positive sign.
The number of Lake Norman listings coming back-on-the-market hit an all time HIGH, increasing by 82% versus the last Hot Sheet. This certainly indicates increased instability in our real estate market perhaps due to the lack of confidence of buyers and the challenging mortgage market. Lenders have tightened up significantly. Buyers are finding out that they are not able to get the loans they expected to get in some cases which may be contributing to this very high rate of cancelled contracts.
The number of price changes was almost identical to the last Hot Sheet. I continue to see some significant price reductions on homes I have been showing…sometimes as much as 20% or more. (See my Case Study…link below)
Pending sales, equal to the last Hot Sheet, remain low. No serious indication of change in our sales trends.
Solds (Lake Norman home sales contracts that closed in the past two weeks) were identical to the last Hot Sheet. Stability perhaps but these are very low numbers!
Contingent and Conditional Sales dropped to an all time low; down 29% from the last Hot Sheet. These numbers are Lake Norman home sales just put under contract which would seem to indicated that our overall Lake Norman real estate market may still be trending downward.
Unlike earlier Hot Sheets, I am hard-pressed to see a silver lining in these statistics. It is good that we are still seeing significant price changes and that our inventory of Lake Norman homes for sale is beginning to decrease. However, the most troubling number today is the number of contracts that were canceled. Almost twice as many contracts were canceled as were closed which is highly unusual. Hopefully the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and the resulting wonderful drop of mortgage interest rates that we saw this week will help more Lake Norman home buyers not just qualify but enable them to actually get good loans!
Lake Norman Real Estate: Friday Hot Sheet 9/12/08
LAKE NORMAN RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE HOT SHEET
September 12, 2008
My fifth bi-monthly Lake Norman Friday Hot Sheet is here!
Above is a chart with Friday’s “hot sheet” numbers from the Charlotte Multiple Listing Services for all single family homes in Lake Norman (area 13). For comparison, I have provided numbers from three weeks ago and earlier this year. Here are some highlights:
Unlike earlier Hot Sheets, I am hard-pressed to see a silver lining in these statistics. It is good that we are still seeing significant price changes and that our inventory of Lake Norman homes for sale is beginning to decrease. However, the most troubling number today is the number of contracts that were canceled. Almost twice as many contracts were canceled as were closed which is highly unusual. Hopefully the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and the resulting wonderful drop of mortgage interest rates that we saw this week will help more Lake Norman home buyers not just qualify but enable them to actually get good loans!
Have a great weekend!
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