Change seems to be in the air in our Lake Norman real estate market. Lake Norman’s closed home sales have maintained historically strong numbers (post the recession) each month in 2013 but they are continuing their softening trend since our record setting high in May. While we still logged in some solid closed home sales numbers in September, we actually appear to be struggling right now to keep our sales up for the rest of this fall/winter above last year’s. At 104 single-family home sales in September we logged in the best September since 2007 and we may even equal 2007 once the late comers input their sales into the MLS but will we sustain this trend?
Let’s take a closer look at the numbers to glean some insight into the short term future and exactly where the Lake Norman housing market stands right now.
Here are the September 2013 numbers from our Charlotte Multiple Listing Service for our Lake Norman Area 13 real estate market:
* Note that the Charlotte Regional Multiple Listing Service created two new categories, Under Contract Showings (UCS) to continue and Under Contract no showings (UCNS). These replaced the Contingent, Conditional and Pending categories. Contingent Sales are now joined with Conditional sales in my reports.
Some significant additional statistics for you:
- “Distressed sales” (Foreclosures (REOS), defaults, Short Sales) comprised 15.4% of Lake Norman’s total home sales which is up from 9.4 last month, 11.3% in July, 6.9% in June, 10.6% in May , the 14% in April but down from 20.4% in March, 16.9% in February and January’s 29%. We only had 16 distressed home sales in September. The average price for distressed single family home sales jumped back up to $348,168 from last month’s low of $252,526. Distressed active listings comprise only 3.2% of our total inventory of Lake Norman homes sale! According to a recent article on Realtor.org in the US foreclosures and short sales represented 12% of August sales.
- 34.6 % of our closed sales were waterfront homes which is equal to the last few months. The average sales price of Lake Norman waterfront homes in September was $738,972 which is up slightly from last month;s $709,753 but well below July’s $874,988 June’s $990,693 and May’s $778,045. The average price per square foot was $211.11 dropping for the second month in a row after peaking at $229. This can be directly attributed to having only 6 waterfront home sales over $1 million for the second month in a row compared to 13 sales of waterfront homes over $1 million in both June and July.
- 8 new construction homes sold in September which was 3 less than last month’s. The average listing price vs sales price of new construction single family homes was 101%! Clearly there isn’t a lot if ANY wiggle room on prices of new homes. We currently have 50 new construction homes under contract. The average sales price was up to $406,596 compared to last month’s $373,183. It is important to note that many of the new construction homes you will see driving around the lake are custom homes so will not be included in our Multiple Listing Service numbers.
- 55% of Lake Norman’s September home sales were under $400,000 up from 50% last month.
- 66.3% of our August home sales were under $500,000 which is about equal to last month but significantly lower than last winter’s in February’s 81.7%, 81% in January, 74 % in December, 75% in November. After seeing an upswing in both the trade-up price ranges and our Lake Norman luxury homes earlier in the summer, we have seen several months of weaker sales in our trade-up and luxury housing markets.
- Our “Under Contract Show” AND “Under Contract No show”/Pending sales combined total of 118 was the fifth month in a row of decline after April’s record high of 319 . At 207, we have fewer homes under contract than any other month in 2013 but January. It is not only clear that our Lake Norman housing market has definitely slowed down but now we appear to be struggling to keep pace with 2012.
A closer look at the chart: Continue reading
