Southern Mississippi Housing Market on Even Keel
The bad credit mortgage woes and subsequent problems that have wracked a major portion of the national real estate market don’t necessarily indicate the state of the Southern Mississippi real estate market at present.
The Hattiesburg Board of Realtors President, Sue Gallaspy, said Wednesday that “not only have we not been affected by what’s going on nationally,” Gallaspy said, “we’re growing.”
Local conditions play the biggest role in local real estate markets, said mortgage broker Adam Watkins, making the notion of a national real estate market not entirely accurate.
“The term ‘national’ market is a little misleading,” he said, “because real estate is a local market. There are economic factors in each market that can affect them differently.”
The bad credit mortgage collapse barely has affected the local real estate market, although it has caused lenders to become more cautious about a lot of the home loans they underwrite.
“I think our lenders learned from that,” Gallaspy said. “You have to have good credit, and you can’t buy a home if you have bad credit.”
Dealing with local Mississippi mortgage lenders, real estate agent DeLois Smith said, may keep buyers from getting in over their heads.
“If you deal with a local home loan lender with a good reputation,” Smith said, “they will be there to help with your financial needs in the long term.”
While real estate agents acknowledged a number of reduced-price homes on the market, the majority were not originally priced at market value.
“Sometimes a seller will want to sell their home for a price above its fair market value,” Smith said. “If they choose a price at fair market value, they won’t have to reduce that price later.”
- Gallaspy characterized the Hattiesburg housing market as a balanced one, favoring neither the buyer nor the seller.
- The average price of a home in the Hattiesburg area for the month of July was $150,414, lower than the $154,500 average in January.
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