Charleston Real Estate Market Update for the First Quarter of 2013

Posted by Lee and Katherine Keadle on Friday, April 12th, 2013 at 10:26am.


charleston real estate chart statistics

The Charleston real estate market has had the strongest quarter we’ve seen in years! From January 1 to March 31, Charleston sold 2,361 homes with a median sales price of $193,000. Comparing this quarter to the same time last year, that’s a 16.5% increase in the number of sales and a 7.3% increase in the median sales price.

graph showing charleston real estate trends

As the inventory of homes for sale continues to decline, we’re seeing more new construction projects in the area. However, many of these subdivisions and subsections won’t be available until later this year or early next year. A growing demand for homes combined with the decrease in today’s inventory has resulted in significantly higher prices for these new construction homes – not to mention the recent cost increases for lumber and other building supplies. In March alone, 140 vacant lots went under contract in Charleston which is a 40% increase compared to last year. Since land makes up about 21.7% of the final sales price of a new home, this factor also contributes to rising construction prices in Charleston.

You’ll see to the right two figures that show the historic trends of Charleston real estate prices since 1991. The chart shows the annual number of sales, median sales price, the percent change in median sales price over the previous year, and also the inventory levels. The graph shows two lines – the actual median sales price in Charleston since 1991 and also a continuously compounded appreciation rate of 5.1%. With this compound rate, property values double in just over 13 years. These figures were both created by one of our company’s statisticians, Doug Holmes (who is also a math instructor at the College of Charleston). So, they take into account the entire tri-county Charleston. Hopefully these stats and figures will give you a broader scope of our local market. If you have questions about buying or selling a home in Charleston, feel free to contact us anytime. We’re always happy to help!