Hickory, N.C., Housing Market Holding Steady
After a rough patch caused by the faltering local economy, the Hickory housing market is showing signs of improvement - even as other parts of the country are facing a housing slowdown.
Data from the N.C. Association of Realtors points to the same conclusion, though it also makes clear that housing prices in faster-growing parts of the state have outpaced those locally.
“The gloom and doom we hear all over Florida, California … and those places is not here,” said Mike Watts, the broker-owner of Premiere Properties in Morganton.
“We’re holding our own,” said Jane Willis, a broker with Realty Executives in Hickory.
The Hickory area is less susceptible to the housing market slowdown because it wasn’t part of the boom in the first place.
While other regions’ home prices skyrocketed earlier this decade, the Unifour economy tanked, leading to high supply and low demand.
The result: Shifts in the North Carolina housing market here have been less drastic than elsewhere in the country, and home prices here remain more moderate than in most other metro areas in the state.
Between 2000 and 2006, for instance, the average price of a home in the Asheville area increased 56.4 percent. In the Charlotte housing market, too, the average price jumped up 23.3 percent.
During the same period, average sale prices in the Catawba Valley Multiple Listing Service area - which includes Caldwell, Catawba, Alexander and part of Burke County - rose, too, but by only 9.5 percent.
Based on the most recent data, that trend appears to be continuing as more people are applying for North Carolina mortgage financing across the board.
In June, the most recent month with data available, the average sale price of a Catawba Valley home stood at $160,478, a 6 percent increase over June 2006.
Because housing sales are seasonal and mortgage rates cyclical, the best way to interpret numbers is to compare them with the same month of the previous year.
Other signs also point to a fairly stable market. The number of homes sold in June fell only slightly - 2 percent - compared with the previous June.
The total dollar amount of home sales so far this year, from January to June, is off only 1.2 percent from the total last year at the same time.
And the number of homes sold per year in the area has been rising steadily since 2002, with the number of homes sold so far this year up slightly from the same period last year.
Still, those looking for a home locally are likely to have a lot to choose from, agents say, calling it a buyer’s market and noting that a high number of foreclosures is creating additional inventory in every price range.
That means those in the market for a home loan will find not only attractive rates, but plenty of properties on the market.
In a balanced market, it should take about 90 to 120 days to sell a home. In the Hickory area, it takes longer - about 138 days, on average, in 2006, said Kenneth Ferguson, co-owner of The Property Shop in Lenoir.
That’s down from 145 days in 2005, he said.
SOURCE: Charlotte Observer