The SC Association of Realtors recently released their sales reports for all the Multiple Listing Services in the state, and the numbers show a tale pretty much like Anderson County – sales are way down for the year, but the month of June showed a shallower drop than the months before. You can download the full report here.

For the first six months of 2009, home sales statewide were down 23.7%, but the month of  June only showed a drop of 11.3%. And three MLSs – Spartanburg, Cherokee and Hilton Head – actually showed increases in June.  To me, this is an encouraging sign because I can’t wait until the month that shows an improvement over the previous year in Anderson! Hopefully it will be soon.

Overall, our MLS (the Western Upstate MLS that covers Anderson, Oconee and Pickens counties) was down 21% for the year, which puts us slightly better than average. The best MLS so far this year is the Beaufort MLS, which is down “only” 14.7%. The worst is the Greenwood MLS, which has seen a drop of 37.5%.
Other areas include:

• Charleston area - down 25.6%
• Greenville area - down 26.2%
• Spartanburgh area - down 15.3%
• Myrtle Beach area - down 15.0%

Median prices are all over the place, with many showing double digit declines while others actually show increases. The Western Upstate MLS had a 20% drop in June, but for the year is only off 1.6%. Hardest hit was the Southern Midlands MLS (Orangburg) that showed a year-to-date decline of 21.8% in median price, while the Beaufort and the Rock Hill area MLS’s both showed increases ( 0.5% and 5.2% respectively).

And it doesn’t look like July will be the month that finally stops the decline in home sales in Anderson County. As of this writing, 67 homes have closed versus 140 last July. While closings typically cluster at the end of the month, that’s still a lot of ground to make up. But we’re cautiously optimistic, and really think that we’ll see the losing streak broken by the end of the year.

As always, please feel free to call us at (864) 225-2503 or you can leave a comment here.

Thanks,
Elizabeth