On the real estate front, the number of transactions year to date is almost the exact same as last year. However, the median sales price is up 7.2% over the same period to an all time high of $265k. That’s a pretty heady number. The last couple of years have seen more modest gains of around 4%. Many people are asking if this is the warning of another bubble. But remember, real estate doesn’t ever really go down.
Well it did once, in 2008. But that was an anomaly. There was a good reason for that and it was nationwide. Don’t expect prices to go down again. Economies go into recession and this causes real estate to go flat. Sometimes you may see your real estate value stay constant for many consecutive years. But it never really goes down. Our analysis back to 1991 shows that current values in Charleston are where they should be on the long term trend line. We probably cannot sustain 7% increases for very long, but that does not mean there’s a bubble. Note that Johns Island sales are up 54.2% YTD in terms of number of transactions. And Daniel Island is up 28% YTD in terms of number of transactions. Daniel Island median sales price is also up over 20% YTD over the same period from 2017.