2012 Real Estate Market Shaping Up Wilmington NC
Image by kurafire via Flickr
The Week in Review
January 1, 2012
Happy New Year! I hope you and your friends and family had a great holiday! 2012 will bring many great things including an active real estate market! If you are thinking of putting your home on the market or relocating to the area please drop me an email or call and lets talk about the best way forward.
Currently on the market there are 1538 single family homes and 157 homes under contract. In the last 2 months there have been 464 homes sold and 265 of those were priced below $200,000.
Housing Starts in U.S. Increase to Highest Level in a Year
Builders broke ground in November on the most houses in over a year, led by a three-year high on work in multifamily units, a sign the market is stabilizing heading into 2012.
Starts increased 9.3 percent to a 685,000 annual rate, exceeding the highest estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and the highest level since April 2010, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Building permits, a proxy for future construction, also climbed to a more than one- year high.
N.C. Third Among Best States for Business
N.C. continues to garner praise for its business environment. Forbes magazine recently ranked North Carolina third in its annual ranking of best states for business, based on costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, economic climate, growth prospects and quality of life.
Existing Home Sales continue to rise
Existing-home sales rose again in November and remain above a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Also released today were periodic benchmark revisions with downward adjustments to sales and inventory data since 2007, led by a decline in for-sale-by-owners.
The latest monthly data shows total existing-home sales1, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, increased 4.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.42 million in November from 4.25 million in October, and are 12.2 percent above the 3.94 million-unit pace in November 2010.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said more people are taking advantage of the buyer’s market. “Sales reached the highest mark in 10 months and are 34 percent above the cyclical low point in mid-2010 – a genuine sustained sales recovery appears to be developing,” he said. “We’ve seen healthy gains in contract activity, so it looks like more people are realizing the great opportunity that exists in today’s market for buyers with long-term plans.”Reported by NAR.
. ..until next week in The Week in Review Tina
