Housing Crisis - Charleston, SC
Charleston, SC is the second biggest city in South Carolina, and as such, should be a good indication of what is happening in the South due to our current housing crisis.
150 Bee St Apt 402
A Bee Street Loft offers a modern design with high end comforts. Open floor plan with high ceilings, gourmet kitchen with granite counters and stainless appliances. Bee Street Lofts is a secure gated building with 24 hour surveillance. Unit overlooks the courtyard and city. This unit includes two parking spaces 94 & 95. Move-in condition!!!
This condo looks lavish - granite countertop and modern steel appliances. What a great investment opportunity, right! Wrong, let’s look at the last sale price of this condo:
- Price: $374,900
- Last Sale Price: $638,375 in 08/2007
Are you kidding me? In three years, this condo lost over $250,000 worth of value? How is this even possible? I’m really at a loss for words here, I expected that this post would be a ‘oh, everything is ok elsewhere’ post, but it clearly is not.
One thing that is clearly not mentioned is the HOA fees. If you are going to look into buying any condo, please be sure about what the HOA fees are each month, and be sure that the bank is up to date with it’s portion of the HOA fees. If you don’t, you could be facing some serious foreclosure hell.
208 Ashley Ave Apt C
Fantastic spacious condo located one block from MUSC campus and walking distance to Charleston’s finest restaurants, fabulous night life, and historic landmarks. Beautiful heart of pine floors, 10’ ceilings, private entrance, new carpet and paint, and huge 2nd floor balcony overlooking Ashley Ave are just a few of the features of this great home.
The MUSC stands for the Medical University of South Carolina, so this property is near a school that produces doctors, surgeons, and tons of other highly specialized practitioners. The going price for this property must be through the roof.
- Price: $239,900
- Bedrooms: 3
- Bathrooms: 2
- Full Baths: 1
- Half Baths: 1
- Living Area Size: 1,699
Wow, that isn’t very bad, especially when you consider that this condo has over 1600 square feet of space! Let’s check the price history:
- 03/15/2010 Price change* $239,900 -7.7%
- 02/12/2010 Listed for sale* $259,900 -8.8%
- 01/19/2010 Price change* $284,900 -5.0%
- 12/26/2009 Price change* $300,000 0.0%
- 12/09/2009 Price change* $299,900 5.2%
- 08/31/2009 Price change* $285,000 –
- 08/29/2009 Listed for sale* – –
Wow, there has been some serious trouble selling this property. I’m guessing that they were looking to sell before the $8000 tax credit came to an end. Obviously, they were not successful. Why did they have to knock 20% off the asking price in 6 months?
As it turns out, the median income for this area is $21,907. People generally cannot afford a home that is more than 3 times their income - you would need to make $80,000 a year to afford this property.
1845 Hazelwood Dr
- Price: $139,900
- Bedrooms: 3
- Bathrooms: 3
- Living Area Size: 2,403
This ranch-style house is what southern properties are known for. It’s huge in square footage, the price is cheap and the pictures show that the property is in somewhat of a working condition. Let’s look at the sell price:
Last Sale Price: $169,950 in 11/2006
That doesn’t seem like that big of a drop in price. Wait, let’s stop looking at the 30,000 difference and calculate percentage lost: ~17.5%. This is definitely not as bad as the condos we’ve seen in vegas, or even the ones we’ve seen in Charleston. Remember though, this is a single story ranch style house in the south. If realtors are to be believed at all, this property should be the least hit by this recession. I would not call a 17.5% drop in value over four years a small hit - and this is happening all across the U.S.
Conclusion
To be quite honest, before writing this article, I was expecting to write a fluff piece on how great the southern economy is. How the low housing prices weren’t touched by the Tsunami that is Option ARM resets, or the raging excess inventory from California. The housing crisis is happening everywhere, in our own backyards (literally), and on our street corners.
View Charleston SC foreclosures to find foreclosures in Charleston or check out all South Carolina foreclosure listings. Don’t let this post discourage you, great deals still can be found. Be cautious, however, as these nightmarish properties do not have good endings for the former owners.
Crime is up, inflation is up, government incentives are about to go away for new home buyers, interest rates will rise, and giant sharks will learn how to skateboard and attack suburban homes in rebel gangs. Some of that may not be true, actually, let’s hope all of it is false.
