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Monthly Indicators
Sometimes the best answers aren't right under your nose. For example, the most popular market indicator is home prices. But prices are what we call a lagging indicator, because they reflect closed sales. Leading indicators are forward-looking. Watch activity related to list price received at sale, days on market and months supply of inventory to see how sellers might be regaining their pricing power. Favorable supply-demand trends may be ticking away from the buyer for the first time in years. Moral of the story: Price is but a single picture in the gallery.
New Listings in the Hilton Head region decreased 12.2 percent to 489. Pending Sales were up 42.1 percent to 358. Inventory levels shrank 16.7 percent to 2,806 units.
Prices remained under pressure. The Median Sales Price decreased 22.2 percent to $210,000. Days on Market was down 0.1 percent to 152 days. The supply-demand balance stabilized as Months Supply of Inventory was down 27.8 percent to 10.7 months.
When monitoring residential real estate activity, it is always important to keep tabs on the overall economy and job growth. Preliminary Q1-2012 GDP growth came in at 2.2 percent, which, while disappointing to some observers and slower than Q4- 2011, still signals economic expansion and not contraction. Expedited bank processing and easing lending standards are also encouraging developments.
House Supply Overview
Headline numbers can often mask important variations across different areas and property types, rendering segment-specific statistics that much more important. For the 12-month period spanning May 2011 through April 2012, Pending Sales in the Hilton Head region were up 15.4 percent overall. The price range with the largest gain in sales was the $100,001 to $225,000 range, where they increased 26.4 percent.
The overall Median Sales Price was down 2.0 percent to $229,200. The property type with the smallest price decline was the Condo segment, where prices decreased 2.4 percent to $145,000. The price range that tended to sell the quickest was the $100,000 and Below range at 98 days; the price range that tended to sell the slowest was the $650,001 and Above range at 220 days.
Market-wide, inventory levels were down 16.7 percent. The property type that lost the least inventory was the Single-Family segment, where it decreased 16.6 percent. That amounts to 10.3 months supply for SingleFamily homes and 11.4 months supply for Condos.
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(All data provided by Multiple Listing Service of Hilton Head Island - powered by 10K Research and Marketing and sponsored by the South Carolina Association of REALTORS.)