By JIM PARKER
The Post and Courier
Just last year, agent Owen Tyler saw how good “pub” — Charleston named the world’s best place to visit — rubbed off on the local housing market.
And the Realtor has witnessed how the era of ultra-low mortgage interest rates has prevented more than one house hunter from abandoning the idea of buying.
But Tyler, an associate with Carolina One Real Estate and president of the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors, may be most excited by another bit of news directed at the housing market in recent months.
“Certainly, the money is out there (now) for a loan to a qualified buyer,” he says. That’s a key change from the past four or five years, when lenders tightened credit standards and many slowed down their loan stream during the national housing slide.
“The banks are open, they are lending money,” he says. “That (the renewed bank involvement) has been really helpful on the market,” he says.
Fortunately for greater Charleston, the region has been reasonably insulated from the housing slump, Tyler says. He credits a diverse job market that includes medical, port and tourism sectorsas well as Boeing’s aircraft plant in North Charleston.
There’s no question the area suffered through sagging home prices and sales from 2008 through 2011. Median home values and transactions remain below the levels of the mid 2000s.
But last year was a welcome turn in fortunes. According to Tyler, 2012 “certainly was a much better year than anyone ever expected.”
He’s not the only real estate watcher who is gung-ho about the past year’s housing figures.
“Final 2012 numbers are starting to come in, and they are looking very good and much better than predicted a year ago,” says Brian J. Foster, of Charleston-based Real Estate Information Service Inc.
To Read the Full Article:
Post & Courier Article on Housing in Charleston, SC
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