The Charleston Regional Business Journal released their 2010 Market Facts last week.  It’s a slew of graphs and charts outlining market performance across the tri-county area over the past 3 years.  It’s extremely helpful to get a visual depiction of real estate market trends during this recession.

Not surprisingly, compared to ’07 and ’08, 2009 home sales look pretty pathetic.  It was a doozy of a year for all of us.  There are a few positive stats to be noted: Home Re-sales in ’09 in Charleston County sky-rocketed up to almost 4,200 closings.  However, you have to factor in how many of those were probably short sales and foreclosures.  Also, the average home price has steadily declined since ’07 for all areas (James Island, West Ashley, Mt. Pleasant, etc) EXCEPT for Downtown!  Downtown resales in 2009 exceeded sales in ’07, and the average sale price jumped from $624,000 to $1.4 Mil for 2009.  There is a silver lining people!

There’s also a MLS Sales Stats chart that compares monthly # of sales, price, DOM, etc.  On average, there seems to be about 300 MORE sales per month for April, May, and June ’10 compared to the same months in ’09.  Maybe I’m falsely optimistic, but to me it seems that Charleston is showing all the right signs of coming out of this recession sooner rather than later.  After all Charleston is still a very desirable place to live and visit; that hasn’t changed.  People will continue to want to relocate here, and we all should be thankful for that!

*The CRBJ has not posted Market Facts 2010 online yet. I’m sure seeing, is easier than reading, so keep checking back at www.charlestonbusiness.com