After a tough fall and winter, Lake Norman’s real estate market seems to be coming to life simultaneously with the arrival of spring temperatures. Perhaps we actually can blame our weak housing market on the weather and the tightened mortgage requirements like the national pundits are doing. That said, we can’t blame it on a lack of inventory like parts of the US. All I know is that it is such a relief to see a marked increase in real estate activity here in Lake Norman after such a bad spell! March seems to be the “bottom” of our mini housing dip with 17% fewer closed sales than last March. However new contracts are nearly up to last year’s for the first time in months.
Let’s take a look at the March 2014 numbers from our Charlotte Multiple Listing Service for our Lake Norman Area 13 real estate market:
* All data is from the Charlotte Regional Multiple Listing Service
Some significant additional statistics for you:
- “Distressed sales” (Foreclosures (REOS), defaults, Short Sales) represented 11.25% of Lake Norman’s total home sales which is up from last months 5.6 but lower than February’s 13.6% and significantly lower than last January’s 29%. We only had 9 distressed home sales in March. The average price for distressed single family home sales was $309,396. Distressed active listings comprise only 2.7% of our total inventory of Lake Norman homes sale. Clearly distressed sales no longer play a significant role in our Lake Norman real estate market and this is very good news!
- Only 25% of our March closed sales were waterfront homes but this is up from 20% last month. The average sales price of Lake Norman waterfront homes in March was $1,008,891; significantly higher than last month’s $805,203 and even topped last summer’s high of $990,693 in June due in part to a $4.85 million sale. In March our closed luxury housing sales remained weak but they have improved significantly in the past weeks. Our average price per square foot, at $221.14, is still below our peak of $229 last summer but is rising. Lake Norman’s waterfront home sales above $700,000 are also improving.
- 13 new construction homes closed in March representing 16.25% of our total sales. I believe this does not reflect an accurate picture of new home sales since so many are custom or are purchased directly from the builders and therefore never enter the MLS. (In fact, this segment of the market may be skewing our Lake Norman home sales numbers quite a bit). The average listing price vs sales price of new construction single family homes,99%! Clearly there isn’t a lot if ANY wiggle room on prices of new homes. We currently have 51 new construction homes under contract in the MLS. The average sales price in March logged in at $451,415. With 132 new construction active listings Lake Norman actually has a 10.2 months supply of new homes listed in the MLS.
- 53.75% of Lake Norman’s February home sales were under $400,000.
- 67.5 % of the entire Lake Norman home sales in March were under $500,000. Clearly our lower price ranges are still dominating our housing market.
- Our “Under Contract Show” AND “Under Contract No show”/Pending sales combined total of 243 shot up from last month’s 187. At 243 Lake Norman has 16.2% FEWER homes under contract compared to last year’s 290 at this exact date. This is the highest number since last August. Considering this and the improvement from last month’s -26.6% it looks like we have stopped the bleeding and are on the mend.
A closer look at the chart:
