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By Leigh Kelley
Times-News Staff Writer
Three months into 2012, this may just be the year that Henderson County’s housing market finally begins moving in a positive direction after several dismal years, local Realtors said this week.
The number of homes sold in the county in January and February of 2012 has jumped to 69 and 79 homes, respectively, compared to January and February of 2009, according to the Western North Carolina Multiple Listing Service. There were 46 homes sold in January 2009 and 63 homes sold in February of that year.
In 2010, the numbers for January showed 59 homes sold in the first month of that year, then dropped to 44 homes sold in February, according to the WNCMLS. Fifty-one homes sold in Henderson County in January of last year and that number went down to 49 in February.
The sub prime mortgage lending mess resulted in the burst of the housing bubble that the nation had enjoyed prior to late 2008, economic analysts said. As a result, housing markets became glutted with inventory as banks and other lenders tightened up on regulations, as a backlash against lending rules that had been too loose.
To say that the last few years have been bad for the local housing market, like the rest of the nation, is an understatement, said Tim Ertzberger. president of the Hendersonville Board of Realtors.
“We’ve been on a steady down track and last year was the culmination of several bad years in a row,” he said, adding that a drop in consumer confidence and homeowners skittish about putting their property on the market contributed to the problem. “We didn’t even sell 1,000 homes in the county last year. And when you’ve got 400 Realtors, that tells you how much everybody sold.”
But that scenario looks poised to change this year, he said. Home sales in Henderson County for the first two months of 2012 are up 30 percent over the same time period last year, he added.
“Usually in the wintertime is when we have our highest market saturation — this time last year, we were running around 46 to 48 months (for a home to be on the market),” he said. “Now, so far this year, we are down to 16 months.”
A combination of factors is making the difference, said Lynne Sellers, a Realtor with Beverly-Hanks & Associates in Hendersonville.“Interest rates are still down low, and that is one of the key things right now,” she said. “They (buyers) can buy more house because of this. You don’t know what’s going to happen in six months or a year with interest rates, so that’s why the message to buyers is buy now while money is cheap to borrow.”Several Realtors said that most buyers are getting interest rates of 4 percent for their home loans, some even snagging a 3 percent interest rate.
“The interest rates are incredibly low,” Ertzberger said.
If the good news is that buyers have never had a better time to be in the driver’s seat for home ownership, things are less rosy for home sellers, Realtors said.
At the beginning of 2009, the average sales price for a single family home in Henderson County in January was $228,660, MLS records show. The average sales price for a single family home in January 2012 was $183,903, a decrease of nearly $45,000,
Wanting to buy, needing to sell - That’s exactly the scenario Mills River resident Julene Coggins finds herself in. The owner of a 1,600-square-foot home for several years, she wants to downsize to a condominium, she said.But she has to sell her current home before she can move into anything new, Coggins said, adding that she has been looking for the past three months.“That’s what’s holding me back,” she said. “I’m hoping the housing market will come up and that’s why I haven’t done anything until now because the economy’s been bad.”She hasn’t put her home on the market yet, but said she is “pleased” with the prices she’s seen so far. The low home prices and good interest rates right now are what’s attracting to buy, she said.“I don’t have any set date, but if I could, I would like to be in something within a year,” she added.
Coggins is in the market for something in the $100,000 to $120,000 range, said Realtor Stacey Frady, who is representing Coggins in her home sale and search. Frady is an agent with Keller-Williams Mountain Partners in Hendersonville.
“Things have definitely been better this year,” she said. “Prices are still down, but sales are up. I think we’ve already bottomed out and things are improving and I think it definitely helps with the rates being what they are.”
Hopefully, the area’s housing market is trending toward good things to come, Ertzberger said.
“I see a lot of pent up desire from home buyers out there to get off the fence,” he said. “I see signs so far that we are going to make some progress.”
Reach Kelley at 828-694-7871 or at leigh.kelley@blueridgenow.com.
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