Here are the April 2012 numbers from our Charlotte Multiple Listing Service for our Lake Norman Area 13 real estate market:

IMPORTANT UPDATE!  As of today, 5/16/2012 we have now closed 90 sales in April which is 6 higher than this report and 6 higher (7%) than April 2011!

Some significant additional interesting statistics for you:

• “Distressed sales” ( Foreclosures (REOS), defaults, Short Sales) comprised only 16.67 % of our closed sales in March down from 27.7 % last month, 21% in February,  31% in January,  36.7% in December, 36% in November, 19.8% in October, 10% in September, 16.8 in August,  18.5%  in July,  25% in June and 27% in May 2011. The US average is 24%. The price range of these distressed sales was $75,000 – $1,270,000.  Our percentage of distressed active listings increased slightly to 8% from 6.2 %. Our number of distressed properties remains very low which is very encouraging.  We are not being bombarded by foreclosures and shortsales so far in 2012 as some had predicted.
• 40% of our closed sales were waterfront homes which is slightly higher than March’s 31%.
• 43% of Lake Norman’s April home sales were under  $400,000.
• 49 % of our April sales were under $500,000  compared to 61% in March sales and 70% in April. Higher price ranges are selling too.
• Our average prices are up for closed and conditional sales and DOWN for our active listings.
• As of today, the number of active listings for all of Lake Norman totaled 950 up from 861 on March 1st but still 20% below April 2011.  To put this number in even greater context, back in June of 2008 we had 1789 active listings.

A closer look:

• The number of Active Listings in Lake Norman increased 9% from last month but are 20% lower than last April. 2011 While our number of active listings is increasing as one would expect in preparation for our strongest seasonal sales market they still remain low. Our absorption rate/months of supply of active listings stands at 11.3%.  Our shrinking inventory and rising sales are getting us closer to a balanced 6-8 months of supply in Lake Norman area (MLS area 13).  This is good news for the long-term health of our Lake Norman housing market.

• Contingent Sales, (sales contracts that are contingent upon the buyer selling their own home) which don’t account for a significant segment of our housing market, have actually been on an upswing.  This could be because sellers are more willing to take a risk or more buyers have homes already under contract before they put in an offer.

• Conditional Sales increased for the fourth month in a row, this time by a whopping 79%!  This is HUGE! After a slight lull the upward momentum of our Lake Norman housing market is impressive to say the least.  These are homes that just went under contract and still have financial and inspection conditions. They represent future closed sales most likely in late May/June. Based upon these numbers our closed sales this month should exceed last month’s and have a chance to be our best May/June /July since 2007.  Great short term numbers for Lake Norman!

• Pending sales were up slightly compared to April 2011 and last month.    These are the contracts that are past inspections and are just waiting to close.  Pending sales are usually the best indication of closed sales in the next few weeks.

• The number of closed home sales in Lake Norman in April will be just a bit higher than April 2012 when all the numbers are in but they weren’t too impressive compared to past April’s.  (See the annual chart below).

The total number of Lake Norman homes under contract (but not yet closed) on the first of each month are as follows:

• May 7, 2012: 246 (Wow, a new record again!)
• April 1, 2012: 227
• March 1, 2012: 178
• February 1, 2012: 155
• January 1: 134 (the lowest ALL year)
• December 1: 147
• November: 169
• October: 193
• September: 183
• August: 193
• July: 178
• June: 199,
• May:  173
• April 195,
• March: 163
• February: 142

We are clearly seeing a marked upward trend after a lag at the end of 2011.  This uptick in sales coupled with our low inventory bode well for the overall health of the Lake Norman housing market.

Here is a breakdown by price-range of our April 2012 closed sales in Lake Norman’s area 13-1 to 13-5:

• $75,000 – $199,999:  11
• $200,000 – $299,999: 12
• $300,000 – $399,999: 13

(These price ranges represented 42.8% of  April sales compared to 43% of March sales )

• 400,000 – $499,999:  6
• $500,000 – $599,999: 12

(These price ranges represented 21.4% compared to 26.5% last month)

• $600,000 – $699,999:  11
• $700,000 – $799,999: 3
• $800,000 – $899,999: 2
• 900,000 – $999,999:  4

(Solds for $600,000 – $1mill = 23.8% compared to 19% last month)

• $1,000,000 – $1,999,999: 9
• $2 million+ : 1

(Solds $1million+ = 11.9 % compared to 10.8% last month)

8-Year Comparison of Lake Norman Home Sales By Month

* Please note that all of my numbers are for single family homes. They come from the Charlotte Region Multiple Listing Service and will not include sales that took place outside of our MLS.

**I have made an adjustment of  the totals reflecting the ACTUAL  sales  every month in 2009, 2010 and the totals in the prior calendar years.  The columns may not add up but I do my best with what I have to work!  I also adjust past months when I do the monthly update as a few more sales are usually input late by agents.

Summary and My Insight

The Positives and the Negatives:

Good signs:

• Sales year to date are up 9.37% over 2011
• Inventory of homes for sale remains low
• Significantly increasing conditional sales indicate that our Lake Norman housing market has strong momentum which will be reflected in higher closed sales for at least the next two months.
• The number of distressed homes for sale are a small percentage of our total inventory and sales
• Sales of homes over $499,000 are improving.  This past month the $500,000 – $699,000 price range was particularly strong.
• When properties are priced about right they are getting quite a few showings.  I am getting more calls directly from buyers regarding my own listings. There is a marked uptick in the number of buyers out looking.
• We are seeing more and more new construction popping up (Not spec homes)
• Interest rates are at all time lows…3.84% for a 30-year fixed this morning!
• I have a stack of positive articles about the US housing market from:  USA Today, Inman News, Real Trends, JP Morgan CEO in CNBC article, National Association of Realtors, Freddie Mac’s Economic Outlook Report, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch forecasts, Zillow.com and Wall Street Daily.
• Positive articles about Charlotte including that we are ranked as one of the 10 fastest growing U.S. Cities according the CNN Money (US Census Bureau), and 53rd in First American’s Improving Market Index
• Donald Trump closed on his purchase of The Point Golf and Tennis Club and is infusing cash into renovations and upgrade now named the Trump National Golf Club, Charlotte.

Challenges/Weakesses:

• Sales prices remain low and I don’t see any signs of them going up. Rather, properties are selling once they are priced low enough to attract offers and then they may even get multiple offers.
• With a shrinking inventory of active listings, buyers have fewer options
• Home loans, especially construction loans, are still a very challenging process.
• New: Homeowner’s Insurance is harder to get due to new stricter guidelines
• Global economic turmoil and US economic uncertainty

As I wrote last month:

I am more convinced than ever that our Lake Norman housing market has hit its bottom in terms of annual sales volume.  However, this has not translated to higher sales prices. Prices are low and buyers continue to be very picky; not willing to pay a higher price than past comparable sales.

The gossip among Realtors is how dramatically our activity has increased.  Despite low inventories, the number of buyers out actively looking has increased substantially.  Real estate firms are touting their sales increases and talk as if we are going to sustain these strong numbers. I am a bit more cautious.  While the worst is most likely behind us, we have a long way to go and most expect that it will be a very slow recovery.

My advice to Lake Norman home buyers remains this: Look for homes that are in good locations and have most of the priorities on your list.  While your perfect home might come along, don’t wait too long and don’t dismiss a property if it isn’t perfect.  Prioritize: Location, quality and depth of water (if waterfront buyer) and floorplan. Then, to determine a realistic price, use VERY RECENT comparable sales in your specific market niche.  The selection may not be great but with interest rates at all time lows and prices low it is a good time to buy.  With only 8% of Lake Norman’s current listings being “distressed sales” don’t expect the perfect foreclosure or shortsale to come along at an unrealistic price.  If you insist on low-balling, at least have some comparable sales to justify your number.  Don’t focus as much on the price as on the future marketability of the property.  A bargain that has incurable issues that will make it difficult to resale, really isn’t a bargain at all.  Be smart!

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If you are a sunset person, then you will love Lake Norman.  Every evening offers a unique version of the photo above which I took recently at one of my waterfront listings.  Sometimes they offer a stunning contrast of the colors of a brilliant fire reflected in a dark layer of glass like this one.  Other times our sunset are soft pastel pinks, blues and yellows:

I have a special group of tools with me at all times when showing waterfront properties one of which is a tape measure to see how deep the water is at the dock and the other is a compass to determine exactly where the sun rises and sets. Some waterfront home-buyers definitely want sunsets while others want to avoid the afternoon sun and prefer sunrises.  With 520 miles of shoreline and myriad peninsulas, Lake Norman offers plenty of options for either of the above and everything in between!

To make your desktop calendar, go to the round button at the top of this site’s home page entitled: “Lake Norman Calendar”. Click on this button and up will come this image of my Lake Norman photo wallpaper calender for May 2012. All you have to do is right click and select “set as background”. If you would like a copy of this photo without the calendar, just send me an email.

FREE $25 GAS CARD!

I need your HELP!  I would love to use one of your favorite photos depicting life here in Lake Norman.  (Optimum size is a landscape photo about 2MB or about 1600 x 1200 pixels). I will give a $25 Gas Card to anyone who provides a photo that I use as one of my monthly calendars.  If you’d like to submit a photo  or an idea for a future calendar, please send it to…

diane@dianeaurit.com

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I got a call yesterday from a potential buyer for one of my listings.  He told me he would like me to present an all cash offer of $350,000 for a property I just listed at $429,000.  With a little prodding I was able to find out that he hadn’t seen the home and didn’t know the neighborhood.  I tried to explain a bit about the price and comps and his response was “it is a terrible real estate market and that’s all I need to know”.  REALLY?

Needless to say, my client’s counter to this buyer was not accepted.

This is just one example of how not to be successful in our current Lake Norman housing market. While it is quite common for investors and low-ballers to make these kind of offers when a new listing comes on the market, I have to wonder what these buyers are thinking?  Or, are they thinking at all?  Even banks get disgusted with these types of buyers.  Here is a great example:

A Lake Norman waterfront foreclosure was listed a few months ago for $399,000.  I had an interested buyer so I spoke with the listing agent.   At that time, the bank had already received and turned down several very low offers from investors and it was clear that both the listing agent and the bank were frustrated with these buyers.  My buyer decided to wait.  Over a period of several months the price was lowered twice.  Finally, they lowered it to $329,000.  My buyer quickly made an offer of $305,000 and it was accepted just before multiple offers were coming in.  Clearly, if my buyer had made an offer of $305,000 when it was originally listed it would not have been as well received.

I had a buyer a while back who wanted to make an offer of $800,000 on a home listed at $1,189,000 because he heard the sellers might be desperate to sell.  I knew the comparable sales would not justify anything even close to this price but my buyer felt that if “your throw out enough of these offers eventually one will stick”.  But seriously, if the seller was that desperate wouldn’t they have lowered the price to get multiple offers?  This kind of thinking is truly irrational.  This property just closed for $1,100,000.

I have sold and continue to sell some incredible bargains on Lake Norman but I try to counsel and educate my buyers:

• Timing is everything.  Develop a relationship with the listing agent, especially of foreclosures and shortsales, so that you will know when the sellers are ready to work with a lower offer.
• Do your homework!  I always do a complete market analysis and research the history of any property for my buyers before they make an offer.  We will know how long it has actually been on the market, how many price reductions, what their loan amount is and if there are any signs of distress like a notice of default, a divorce, etc.

There was a recent article in the Los Angeles Times “Low-ball Offers Decline in Some Housing Markets” April 22, 2012 which stated “For home buyers who still think they have a chance of hitting it lucky with a low-ball offer, they’re finding in many markets that their offers are more often being rejected or countered closer to the original asking price.”  In my opinion this is an accurate description of our current Lake Norman real estate market.  Be smart!

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It is important to note that these numbers are only as good as the agents who report them. Expect an adjustment in our 57 sales in February upward perhaps two more sales by the end of the month since it takes some Realtors several weeks to actually input their sales into our MLS.  I create these reports early in the month while the information is still very fresh so always pad the sales upward just a bit.

Here are the February 2012 numbers from our Charlotte Multiple Listing Service for our Lake Norman area real estate market:

Some significant additional interesting statistics for you:

• “Distressed sales” ( Foreclosures (REOS), defaults, Short Sales) comprised 21% of our closed sales in February down from 31% last month,  36.7% in December, 36% in November, 19.8% in October, 10% in September, 16.8 in August,  18.5%  in July,  25% in June and 27% in May. The US average is 24%. The price range of these distressed sales was$40,500 – $350,100 with NO waterfront homes included.  And, our percentage of distressed active listings dropped to a new low of 7.4 % down from 9.5% last month and 10.9 % in December which indicates that our ratio of distressed new listings is actually decreasing.  We are not being bombarded by foreclosures and shortsales so far in 2012 as some had predicted.
• 32% of our closed sales were waterfront homes up from 22% last month. Again, there were no closed sales of distressed waterfront properties in February and there are currently only 27 distressed waterfront properties for sale in all of Lake Norman out of 350 or 7.7%.
• 49% of our February Lake Norman home sales were under  $400,000 compared to 60.9 %  last month. 70% of February sales were under $500,000.
• Our average price is up for closed and conditional sales.
• On March 1st the number of active listings for all of Lake Norman totaled 856 up slightly from 811 on February 1st and our low of 752 on January 1st.  To put this number in context, back in June of 2008 we had 1789 active listings.

A closer look:

• The number of Active Listings in Lake Norman increased 5% from last month but were 20% lower than last February. It should be expected that our inventory will continue to rise this spring but hopefully we will remain well below last year’s numbers. Our absorption rate/months of supply of active listings stands at 15.  Our shrinking inventory is helping but at this lower pace of sales we are still twice as high as a balanced 6-8 months of supply in Lake Norman area (MLS area 13).  The good news for the long-term health of our Lake Norman housing market is that we are not being flooded with new listings so far this year.

• Contingent Sales, (sales contracts that are contingent upon the buyer selling their own home) which don’t account for a significant segment of our housing market, remain extremely low most likely because sellers are unwilling or unable to take on the risk of waiting for the buyer’s home to sell before closing.

• Conditional Sales increased for the third month in a row, this time by 9%. Our Lake Norman housing market has definitely picked up! These are homes that just went under contract and still have financial and inspection conditions. They represent future closed sales most likely in late March/April. Based upon these numbers our closed sales this month and next should exceed the same months in 2011.

• Pending sales were also up 18% compared to February 2011.    These are the contracts that are past inspections and are just waiting to close.  Pending sales are usually the best indication of closed sales in the next few weeks.

• The number of closed home sales in Lake Norman in February were up for the second straight month in a row and a substantial 30% higher than last February.  This was the BEST February since 2007!  (See the annual chart below).

Lake Norman homes under contract (but not yet closed) on the first of each month are as follows:

• March 1, 2012: 178
• February 1, 2012: 155
• January 1: 134 (the lowest ALL year)
• December 1: 147
• November: 169
• October: 193
• September: 183
• August: 193
• July: 178
• June: 199,
• May:  173
• April 195,
• March: 163
• February: 142

We are now seeing a marked upward trend after a lag at the end of 2011.  This uptick in sales coupled with our low inventory bode well for the overall health of the Lake Norman housing market.

Here is a breakdown by price-range of our January 2012 closed sales in Lake Norman’s area 13-1 to 13-5:

• $40,000 – $199,999:  7
• $200,000 – $299,999: 13
• $300,000 – $399,999: 10

(These price ranges represented 52.6% of  February sales )

• 400,000 – $499,999:  10
• $500,000 – $599,999: 5

(These price ranges represented 26% compared to 13% last month)

• $600,000 – $699,999:  6
• $700,000 – $799,999: 0
• $800,000 – $899,999: 0
• 900,000 – $999,999:  2

(Solds for $600,000 – $1mill = 14% compared to 23.9% last month)

• $1,000,000 – $1,999,999: 3
• $2 million+ : 1

(Solds $1million+ = 7% compared to 2% last month)

8-Year Comparison of Lake Norman Home Sales By Month

* Please note that all of my numbers are for single family homes. They come from the Charlotte Region Multiple Listing Service and will not include sales that took place outside of our MLS.

**I have made an adjustment of  the totals reflecting the ACTUAL  sales  every month in 2009, 2010 and the totals in the prior calendar years.  The columns may not add up but I do my best with what I have to work!  I also adjust past months when I do the monthly update as a few more sales are usually input late by agents.

Summary and My Insight

The Good News and the Bad:

Very Good:

• Inventory remains low without a significant spring bump
• Conditional, Pending and Closed sales are up boding well for the next few months at least!
• Number of distressed homes for sale are actually decreasing as a percentage of our total inventory
• I have experienced multiple offers including one listing of mine that sold for OVER ASKING last week
• We are seeing more and more new construction popping up (Not spec homes)
• Higher-end waterfront lots are selling again. Another sign that construction is returning
• Interest rates are at all time lows
• Unemployment rates are dropping locally and nationally

Bad:

• Sales above $700,00 are painfully low; our trade-up price ranges and our luxury homes continues to struggle
• With a shrinking inventory of active listings, buyers have fewer options
• Prices remain low
• Home loans, especially construction loans, are still a challenging process.

I continue to believe that our Lake Norman housing market has hit its bottom in terms of sales volume.  That said, prices for the most part remain low and buyers continue to be very picky. This is not an easy market for either buyers or sellers.

The future of our Lake Norman real estate market still depends primarily on these two things:

1. How much ”shadow inventory” do we have in our Lake Norman area?  Will we see more distressed properties coming on the market later this year or next year? So far this hasn’t been the case.

2.  Consumer confidence based upon the national/global economy and relative stability of our national economy

My advice to Lake Norman home buyers remains this: Look for homes that are in good locations and have most of the priorities on your list.  While your perfect home might come along, don’t wait too long and don’t dismiss a property if it isn’t perfect.  Prioritize: Location, quality and depth of water (if waterfront buyer) and floorplan. Then, to determine a realistic price, use VERY RECENT comparable sales in your specific market niche.  The selection may not be great but with interest rates at all time lows and prices low it is a good time to buy.  With only  7.4% of Lake Norman’s current listings being “distressed sales” don’t expect the perfect foreclosure or shortsale to come along at an unrealist price.  If you insist on lowballing, at least have some comparable sales to justify your number.  Don’t focus as much on the price as on the future marketability of the property.  A bargain that has incurable issues that will make it difficult to resale, really isn’t a bargain at all.  Be smart!

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