I’ve recently seen lots of reports from various national real estate observers talking about home prices going up in some areas of the country. That’s good news because from a national perspective, the housing industry is a bellweather for the rest of our economy. When things start looking up in the housing industry, the rest of the economy is likely to follow.
However, we’ve got to maintain some perspective here. If you’re buying or selling locally, you’ve got to resist the temptation of applying these nationwide results to your own local situation. Looking at our own MLS area which is Mecklenburg and part or all of the surrounding counties, our sales volume is up 15% from last April. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Trouble is, that April of 2011 was down 15% on closings from April 2010. So, we’re right around where we were two years ago.
I like to look at comparative average price per square foot as a better actionable number for buyers and sellers. We can use our system to get those numbers for fairly small areas. Looking at just Iredell and Mecklenbur counties, here are charts that show those figures.
Iredell April 2012 Ave Price per Sq. Ft.
Mecklenburg Ave Price per Sq. Ft.
I think you can see that we can’t run out and start raising prices on the basis of these numbers. At best, you might say we’re bouncing around on a bottom regarding prices. Hopefully this information, along with some better news about comsumer confidence, will get us moving more strongly in the right direction here in the Piedmont Carolinas.
