Charlestonians who weren’t aware that their housing market
was one of the most desirable in the country got a surprise while tuning into the Today Show Tuesday.
In a real estate segment on five housing markets ripe for
recovery, Al Roker introduces industry expert Barbara Corcoran. Of the five
cities she introduces, number five is Charleston,
West Virginia. Corcoran explains that Charleston
got the spot because of a low foreclosure rate, relatively low unemployment and
a median home price of only $121,000.
Unfortunately, this glowing description was accompanied by
scenes of the other Charleston—Charleston,
South Carolina. Even so, producers told
West Virginia Public Broadcasting that the statistics were true, even if the
visuals were not.
The other cities in
the top five were Memphis, Phoenix,
Pittsburgh and San
Francisco.
Charleston’s
realtors weren’t surprised by the city’s national ranking.
Sallie Hart is a realtor with Great Expectations Realty. She
says the area’s lower and mid-priced homes are much more in demand—especially with
the first-time homeowner’s tax credit.
“From our office’s viewpoint, the higher-priced properties—you
get up above $750,000, you’re looking at five to maybe 3 percent of your
market,” she said. “So in a market where we’ve seen a lot of bank debacles and
other things which are affecting everyone’s economic picture, I think the
higher-end properties may be moving a little more slowly.”
Hart says that overall, the market has been pretty
stable. Ray Joseph agrees. He’s the CEO of the West Virginia Association of Realtors. In fact, he says the whole state’s housing market is relatively
steady. But this is partly because the state didn’t see real estate explosions comparable
to those in some other U.S.
housing markets.
“We’ve had our ups and downs,” he said. “But because of the
stability of this market, when the rest of the country was booming, we did well
but we didn’t boom. So consequently, when the rest of the country starts to
bust, we didn’t fall as far.”
Despite the peak in sales in 2005, Joseph says Charleston’s
real estate market is pretty linear.
“We watch our numbers,” he said. “2005 was the best year in
real estate for us, just like it was for most other states, but when you look
at 2005 compared to 2004 and you see that peak in the graph, if you look at
2009 and 2010 numbers, that are early in the first quarter, had it not been for
that one explosive year, we’re really where we should be if you look at a
10-year trend. That’s why our market is so solid.”
But some Charleston
homeowners may be wondering when the reportedly “solid” market will sell their
home. The popular real estate aggregator Zillow lists nearly 500 homes
for sale in Charleston. More than
100 of those have been on the market for at least 90 days.