The Wilmington- Cape Fear Homebuilders announced yesterday that the “housing affordability” in the Wilmington NC area remained near the highest level nationwide for the 6 consectutive month.  The Wilmington NC real estate prices have been lowered and the interest rates are favorable.   

This quote is from WWAY 3 from the president of Homebuilders “The possibility of homeownership is more obtainable for buyers in our market now than it has been for years,” said WCFHBA President John Lancaster of Venture Homes of the Carolinas. “More buyers are beginning to enter the market again thanks to renewed confidence as housing prices stabilize while the fed maintains all time low interest rates.”

Syracuse NY held the top spot on most affordable homes, with some smaller housing markets following close by Mansfield, Ohio; Bay City, Mich.; Monroe, Mich.; and Lansing-East Lansing, Mich.  Lancaster says “Our market is greatly influenced by what happens up north, so the numbers out of places like New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio are encouraging,”. 

That is encouraging news when the news lately has not been so positive.

Please take a minute to tour our website and search the Wilmington NC real estate area to find the house, neighborhood and price that you are looking for.  We have an inhouse Lender – Alpha Mortgage and an inhouse Insurance Agency – Real Mark Insurance and would be happy to give you contact information so that you have a “One Stop” Shop to buy real estate.   We make it easy for you.  Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty and Kay Baker and Associates.  Search all Wilmington NC real estate on www.cbbaker.com

Wilmington NC real estate median sold price continues its five month climb; we are 1.0% ahead of last month and 1.6% over last year this time. Our pending index is up 6.3% from last month. Our year to date we have a growth of 15.2% sold units over last year while our average sold price is just 1.9% behind last year. In our rolling 12 months we are 16.1% up in sold units and our average sold price is only down by 3.6%. This is the first month to break the string of sold units over the prior year; we had a string of 10 months. A key point to note is the average sold price is just a hair under last month by .03% or $707.00, but we are 8.4% ahead of last year this time.  The trend is our negative numbers and gaps keep getting smaller and smaller.
In the month of July, we saw a decrease of 125 Wilmington NC homes for sale, we have 5,604 homes on the market as of August 1st.  This continues to put us in a strong buyer’s market with a listing inventory of over a 16.0 month supply. With the low sales in July this affects our month supply with a change of 5 months from last month. Our average list price has stayed below the $400,000 range for eleven months; we are currently at $377,052. In July we saw a decrease in our seller concessions, it is now 21.7%. Our average days on the market are 121. The list to sold ratio is 94.8% and is up .4% from last month; this number needs to continue to get better. The number of homes that sold in 15 days or less continues to remain very low, 17.7% of July sold homes. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.44% with an average 0.7 points for the week ending August 12, 2010. We are now hitting historic lows in mortgage rates.
Listing Inventory
In July we saw our first decrease in listing inventory of 125 units. We are about 204 units over August 1, 2009. We have 5,604 single family homes for sale in our MLS. The average list price of $377,052 is down by $3,515 from last month. The average list price has decreased by 8.1% from August 1, 2009. Read the rest of this entry

Rendering by Creative Illustration Media, INC. LS&P Architects

Wilmington NC is going to get it’s own state of the art  Convention Center.  After waiting for approvals and site plans, an opening date has been set for the Historic Downtown Wilmington Convention Center on the Cape Fear River. 

The grand opening is set for Thursday January 13, 2011 at 9:30 am.  The public is invited and there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony with the mayor and other community leaders.  Following the ceremony, there will be a BizTech Expo with technology and business vendors.  On January 15 a black tie event will be held by the Greater Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, with proceeds benefiting the Cape Fear Future initiative.  

A couple of big companies have signed contracts to hold their conventions here for the next couple of years.  This will bring added revenue to Wilmington NC and expose our area and all it’s natural treasures and great Wilmington NC real estate opportunities.  

Please explore our website for the most up to date listings of all Wilmington NC real estate and waterfront properties.  www.cbbaker.com or call us and we will personally select properties that will fit your real estate needs or portfolio.

Fantastic positive news was released from the National Association of Realtors today.  The news release stated that the historically low interest rates combined with the $8,000 credit for first-time ( or homeowners who have not purchased a home in 3 years) helped raise the pending home sales contracts, for the third consective month.

The Pending Home Sales Index a “pending prediction” indicator based on contracts signed in April, rose 6.7 percent to 90.3 from 84.6 in March,
which is even above the April 2008 index of 87.5.

To get the first time home buyer credit of $8,000, contracts must be firmed up by November 30, 2009 to receive the credit, so we look forward to an increase in home sales.

The Wilmington NC real estate market has also enjoyed an increase in pending sales contract and still is in a a strong postion to continue this trend.

To search all Wilmington NC real estate and find out about the $8,000 tax credit please read more about the Wilmington NC real estate market here.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency released their HPI (House Price Index) for the last quarter and year to date. Read the rest of this entry

Top 6 Cities Named for Housing Values Increase

When you hear all the gloom and doom on the news media, we get some very positive news for Wilmington, NC real estate. A government report released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency states that Wilmington NC ranks in the top six cities nationwide where house values have increased the most over the last five years. Wilmington has experienced a substantial 62.1 percent increase. Others named were Honolulu at 78.7%; Virginia Beach at 72.6%; Flagstaff at 66.5%; Bellingham, WA at 65.6% and Baltimore at 60.6%. Read the rest of this entry

The Economy and Bailouts

The last couple of months have had our world spinning and we have learned that while one industry hurts it affects other industries. Everyone wants a bailout these days, while it may take a while for all these different plans to work, it seems to be moving the markets in the right direction. With the Fed announcing just before Thanksgiving that it would purchase up to $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities, we saw mortgage rates drop from 6.06% to 5.5%. Read the rest of this entry

Wilmington NC Real Estate Market Conditions

“The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind. The answer is blowin in the wind” Bob Dylan. Where is the answer? While the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department think they have the answer. Congress thinks they have the answer and Wall Street has a bailout, now the Auto Industry is looking for help. With so many plans and paths the consumer is confused and has no confidence in our economic system right now. So they sit and wait and hold on to what they have. What is the answer for the consumer? Read the rest of this entry

Has the Housing Market Bottomed?

National existing home sales increased in September by the largest amount seen in several years. Are we actually seeing signs that the real estate market has bottomed out? Home sales increased but prices are down 9% from a year ago, nationwide. Some analysts are predicting home prices could fall another 10% as the inventory of foreclosures increases. 35 to 40% percent of recent sales are either foreclosures or short sales according to the National Associaton of Realtors. Read the rest of this entry

Listing Inventory

Our current listing inventory has a 78 unit decrease from last month and we are about 238 units down from October 2007. We have 5,741 single family homes for sale in our MLS. The average list price of $424,201 is up by $57.00 from last month. Our average list price last October was $427,354. If our charts prove correct we will continue to see a small decrease in listing through December 2008.

Monthly Average Sold Price

Our monthly average sold price is down 13.5% from last month and down 14.0% from September 2007.  September average sold price ($235,068) shows a decline of just 14.1% from year end 2007. When we look at a rolling 12 months our current average sales price remains behind year over year comparisons. Our current year over year (10/01/07 – 09/30/08) average sold price of $261,887 is 3.0% behind $269,905 of this time last year.

Monthly Sold Units

The number of sold homes in September is down 12.7% from last month. When we look at a rolling 12 months our number of sold unit’s year over year is 5,059 units compared to 6,942 last year this time, a decrease of 27.1%. Our monthly sold units continue to lag behind the last couple of years.

Average Sold Price Year to Date

Year over year our year to date numbers have dipped a little.

2003 year end average sale price $ 186,137

2004 year end average sale price $ 210,048

2005 year end average sale price $ 254,080

2006 year end average sale price $ 264,520

2007 year end average sale price $ 273,701

2008 year to date average sale price $ 256,871

Our 12 month (10/1/07 – 9/30/08) rolling average ($261,887) continues to show us that we are in line with last year.

It really is a great time to buy a home right now. Search for your new home.

My thanks to David Flory with Cunningham and Brokers for this valuable information.

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