The Elegant Augusta Real Estate Blog

Lydia Taylor June 23rd, 2008

This morning, I took a look through the Augusta MLS to see the number of residential listings for sale today.  Then I compared the numbers to my last Augusta real estate market report, which was on April 7th.

Richmond County: 1641, 1641, no change
Columbia County: 1464, 1617, 9.5% increase in homes for sale

Aiken County: 534, 545, 2% increase
Edgefield County: 68, 68, no change

Augusta, Georgia: 1273, 1268, slight decrease at 0.04%
Evans, Georgia: 601, 635, showing a 5.4% increase in homes for sale

North Augusta, SC: 316, 326, 3% more homes for sale
Aiken, SC: 125, 137, 8.8% more homes for sale

[First # is the number of homes for sale on April 7th, 2nd number is homes for sale on July 23rd, followed by % change.]

The inventory is static or increasing throughout our area.  But the most desirable areas that I cover, that being Evans in Columbia County, and the city of Aiken in Aiken County, both show near 10% increases in the amount of homes for sale.  The summer months when the kids are out of school is usually the busiest season.  Still, let’s hope when can get all these homes sold soon!

In Augusta there has been an influx of large companies coming into the area over the last year, with hundreds of new jobs being created.  I would have thought if anything the number of homes on the market would stay static or even decline with all the new buyers coming in.

One thing I have seen is that the rental market is staying strong.  While I don’t handle rentals, it’s not unusual to get several queries a week about them.  Despite interest rates being low, and the housing market offering lots of inventory at great pricing levels, many people still choose to rent.  It’s a perfect storm for landlords- being able to increase their number of units at low pricing levels with strategic buys, and keep them occupied.  As a matter of fact, I’ve got one apartment complex for sale right now.

As always, when selling anything in a highly competitive market, marketing and pricing mean everything.

Promotion of my listings over a number of websites is one thing I do, along with a competitive market analysis to make sure I set the price right.  I make up fancy flyers to distribute around the area & make available for web users to download.  Often times I’ll even go door-knocking around the neighborhood to see if the neighbors have any friends looking to relocate.  I also send out an email to the thousands of registrants to www.NorthoftheSavannah.com.  Usually within 24 hours of promoting a property online, I can get several hundred interested buyers looking at it, resulting in several in-person showings during the next few days.

And for my recent home listing in Shadowmoor, I’m hosting a catered (Sticky Fingers!) Realtor Open House this Thursday to make sure my peers see the interior of this beautiful home.  It’s just a few of the things I do to bring everything I can to the table for my clients.

If you want to list a home in the area, please give me a call at 803-270-5005 or contact me for a listing presentation.

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Lydia Taylor April 7th, 2008

This is as a good a time as any for a market report. My last report was the middle of December of last year, which saw single-digit increases in unsold inventory in every market area I looked at. Since we have now concluded the 1st quarter 2008, a comparison to those older numbers would let us know what has happened to home inventory over this last quarter.

Current Status of the Augusta Real Estate Market - Single family residential inventory as of 4/6/2008:

The first number is the # of unsold home listings as of 12/7, which is the date of my last Augusta real estate report. The second is as of 4/6. Percent change is the third number*.

Richmond County: 1554, 1641, up 5%
Columbia County: 1276, 1464, up 13%

Aiken County: 536, 534, no change.
Edgefield County: 70, 68, down 3%

Augusta, Georgia: 1193, 1273, up 6%
Evans, Georgia: 470, 601, up 22%

North Augusta, SC: 301, 316, up 5%
Aiken, SC: 121, 125, up 3%

What pops up right away are those figures for Evans/Columbia County. Wow! There is a significant increase in the amount of homes for sale- 188 in Columbia County and 131 in Evans. While it is difficult to know the mix of homes that were on sale ‘then’ versus ‘now’ one thing is for certain -it remains a buyers market, with lots of inventory to choose from.

What to do if you are an Augusta Home Buyer:

If you happen to be a buyer, take advantage of the market. Find more than one home you like. That’s right, more than one. Then take a shot at your #1 pick, and if you don’t get a good deal, walk away and work on home #2. There is no reason to not get a good deal on a home right now. Want to read more about that? Take a look at my recent article on getting my Accredited Buyer Representative designation - I talk in detail about making offers on new homes.

What to do if you are an Augusta Home Seller:

Home Sellers need to really work on the fundamentals- staging your home (inside & out), pricing your home in-line with recent comparative sales, and marketing your home aggressively. All of this you have control over - and remember a buyer’s mind is often keyed on that first impression, so work on curb appeal and your entryway first.

Make sure your listing agent takes the MLS photos after your clean-up is complete, and don’t list until you are ready to go. Get any obvious repairs done and get that house absolutely flawless. That first week or two on the market is critical. Review the MLS photos and writeup with your real estate professional, and ask them what they are going to do to market your home. For example, in addition to marketing in all the obvious areas online (where most people start their home search) I send out a Listing Alert to all the registered users of this website, which numbers in the thousands. It’s not uncommon to get 15-20 calls on a listing the very first day from a blast like that, and I want to make sure your home is squeaky clean and appears perfect to even the most critical buyers.

If you need any help, please give me a call anytime, I’d love to help in any way I can.

* These numbers are for residential real estate (homes for sale). Listings data obtained from NorthoftheSavannah.com’s feed from GAAR-MLS (The Greater Augusta Realtors-MLS). This data does not include commercial listings, lots and land, or multi-family housing.

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Lydia Taylor February 4th, 2008

In a survey of 100 real estate markets, localmarketmonitor.com (a real estate research firm) rated Augusta Ga has one of 13 ‘undervalued markets’ when comparing historical real estate values to the equilibrium or ‘expected’ home value.

They compared Augusta GA’s average home selling price of $173,400 to the expected value of $204,700- yielding a result that is approximately 15% under the expected average valuation. What follows are the cities on their ‘undervalued’ list:

• Wichita, KS -23%
• Fayetteville, NC -20%
• McAllen-Edinburg, TX -20%
• Memphis, TN -19%
• Indianapolis, IN -19%
• Pittsburgh, PA -18%
• Little Rock, AR -17%
• Dallas-Fort Worth, TX -17%
• Cincinnati, OH -16%
• Des Moines, IA -16%
• Columbus, OH -16%
• Augusta, GA -15%
• Houston, TX -15%

The situation here in Augusta continues to fuel a marketplace that is friendly to buyers, while providing a further indication of the lack of a ‘bubble’ in the area. Home values just weren’t driven very high by cheap mortgages and investor speculation, promising a smooth recovery for the local housing market over the next year to two years. Even better - if the data holds up - home owners should see a significant rise in their home’s value as the market recovery continues.

The survey found that 47 of the 100 markets studied were ‘overvalued’, and 40 were ‘fairly priced’. If you are curious about those overvalued markets, here are the top 10 most overvalued markets according to their research:

1. Naples, FL 90%
2. Riverside-San Bernardino, CA 75%
3. Modesto, CA 74%
4. Miami-West Palm Beach, FL 69%
5. Stockton, CA 69%
6. Santa Barbara-Santa Maria, CA 68%
7. Port St. Lucie-Fort Pierce, FL 67%
8. San Jose, CA 65%
9. Los Angeles-Anaheim, CA 63%
10. San Diego, CA 60%

The average home in Naples Florida sells for $521,900 when the expected equilibrium price should be around $274,900. I can only imagine the correction that has to take place in some of those markets before recovery. Wow.

If you would like to see a historical record of average home prices in Augusta, I’ve included one here (click for larger version):

UPDATE: As if to put an exclamation point on my post, Mark Thompson, PhD and a Chair in Business at ASU, also wrote a piece today in the Augusta Chronicle today titled Area’s housing market can wait out US decline (registration required).

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Lydia Taylor December 21st, 2007

I had a request today to share some historical housing data for Columbia County. The question was, “Can you post some information from the MLS concerning average DOMs and declining prices in Columbia County?” It took a little bit of digging, but I found it! So, here you go:

For the year 2006:
Columbia County had 3,958 residential listings, of which 2,901 were sold, 675 withdrawn, and 438 expired before sale. The average days on the market (DOM) was 76 days, with a sale price 99% of the list price. The average sale price of a Columbia County home was $208K.

Year to date 2007:
Columbia County had 4,004 residential listings, of which 2,274 were sold, 1,044 withdrawn, and 318 expired before sale. The average DOM is 88 days. Sales are closing with an amount within 99% of the listing price. The average sale price so far is $217K. There are 154 homes that are marked pending (under contract as of today).

So to answer the question directly, the average DOM has increased 12 days, while the average listing price has increased $9,000. Home values in Columbia County increased roughly 4.25% last year.

Not exactly a gloom-and-doom scenario. In fact I had someone remind me this was a normal market several years ago, before the real estate boom.

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Lydia Taylor December 18th, 2007

The year 2007 in Review:

Before I get into the stats today I just wanted to make a comment on my own activity. In terms of clients, I’ve pretty much closed out what I am going to do for the year. I do have one more house closing scheduled before the end of 2007, but unless someone new pops out of the woodwork…I can put a fork in this year because it’s done.

My activity didn’t really start until late summer, and then all of a sudden I was busy. The spring and early summer of 2007 were slow- I’ll concede that point. But the back half of the year was very productive. And thats what gets me very optimistic about 2008. The growth in inquiries, the growth in web traffic, and my own growth in working clients at the close of this year points to a great 2008. And on top of it all, we have several large groups relocating into the area. The new T-Mobile call center, a new signals operation at the Fort, and expanding operations at several manufacturing plants in the area have all brought me new clients this fall. A FED cut in the interest rate makes the outlook that much better.

Take a look at a line in a recent report: “If my own personal activity on behalf of clients -and this websites’ traffic- are any indication at all, we are in for a very productive fall. I’m not sure if it’s a fluke or not yet, but I saw a very large burst in inquiries this month that continued all through September.”

Would you like to see what I was referring to? Here is a graph of this website’s traffic for the whole year. Notice the steady increase? Now you can certainly attribute some of that traffic to higher visibility in search engines. However, I ended a paid advertising campaign in September (that was bringing in visitor traffic) and relied on strictly ‘organic’ traffic from then on. This graph is showing interest in buying real estate, folks:

[Click on thumbnail for larger version]

Still not convinced? Take a look at pageviews starting in late summer:

The pageviews almost doubled in a few months! All this makes me feel like we are turning the corner on the recent housing doldrum. I’m very excited about next year. So if you are worried about the market next year- let not your heart be troubled. I have an optimistic outlook, and I think you should too!

Current Status of the Augusta Real Estate Market:

OK. Now lets focus on inventory. The last time I took a snapshot on inventory was September 4th, so I’ll use those for some historical comparison. The first number is the # of unsold home listings as of 9/4. The second is as of 12/16. Percent change is the third number*.

Richmond County: 1473, 1554, up 5%
Columbia County: 1184, 1276, up 7%

Aiken County: 501, 536, up 7%
Edgefield County: 64, 70, up 9%

Augusta, Georgia: 1151, 1193, up 4%
Evans, Georgia: 451, 470, up 4%

North Augusta, SC: 279, 301, up 7%
Aiken, SC: 116, 121, up 4%

In every area there is an increase in inventory. The numbers don’t lie. It’s a buyers market. More houses were listed than sold, and the bulk of them will stay on the market until spring.

The market is still sluggish for sellers, so continue to expect to have holding costs. As a seller, if you haven’t sold your home yet, hang on. It’s going to be a while longer! The market doesn’t really start until March-April timeframe, so some of you may be disappointed if you want a quick sale.

So, do the inventory numbers disprove my personal view of how this fall went? Perhaps. My business certainly can’t be reflective of everyone. However, I think my earlier comments still hold true. I fully expect the inventory numbers to start to drop by summer. So, my advice is that if you are an investor, or are looking to make a move into the area right now, consider buying in the first 3 months of next year. That is when the best deals will be made. After that, it might be a little tougher to get a deal on a new home.

* These numbers are for residential real estate (homes for sale). Listings data obtained from NorthoftheSavannah.com’s feed from GAAR-MLS (The Greater Augusta Realtors-MLS). This data does not include commercial listings, lots and land, or multi-family housing.

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Lydia Taylor October 1st, 2007

Well another month down and fall is here. I’m really looking forward to pulling out some sweaters and jackets. Oh- and selling you a wonderful new home (Yay!)

If my own personal activity on behalf of clients -and this websites’ traffic- are any indication at all, we are in for a very productive fall. I’m not sure if it’s a fluke or not yet, but I saw a very large burst in inquiries this month that continued all through September.

Lets take a look at the beginning and ending numbers for residential inventory for September, shall we?

Residential Real Estate Listings for the Augusta GA real estate market

The first number is the # of unsold home listings as of today (11/1). The second # is the number of listings on 9/4. Percent change is the third number.

Richmond County: 1596, 1473, up 8%
Columbia County: 1249, 1184, up 5%

Aiken County: 518, 501, up 3%
Edgefield County: 66, 64, up 3%

Augusta, Georgia: 1242, 1151, up 7%
Evans, Georgia: 455, 451, up 1%

North Augusta, SC: 271, 279, down 3%
Aiken, SC: 131, 116, up 11%

In every area there is an increase in inventory except for North Augusta. It’s been a buyer’s market for about 6 months, and it seems to be continuing.

The market is still a little sluggish for sellers, so expect to have some holding costs. As a seller, you can expect 90 days or more before a sale.

The best plan for sellers is to find a listing agent that is willing to price your house correctly, has an amazing marketing plan, and will work with you on ’staging’ your home for a great impression. If they happen to have the best real estate website in Augusta, all the better!!

These numbers are for residential real estate (homes for sale). Listings obtained from NorthoftheSavannah.com’s feed from GAAR-MLS (The Greater Augusta Realtors-MLS). This data does not include commercial listings, lots and land, or multi-family housing.

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