Last week, I went to Charleston, SC to celebrate my sister in law's graduation from Med School (YEA Lauren!) I had a wonderful time. The weather was beautiful and the graduation party was amazing. Matthew (my brother) had a mobile pizza oven provide the food. It rocked! It was basically a wood burning stove on wheels that produced some outstanding pizzas. Yum. Anyway..enough of my rhapsodizing about the food.
One of the things I've been contemplating since returning was people's reactions about the real estate market. Everyone knows I'm an agent. Everyone was hesitant to ask how it was going. It's a natural reaction..according to the National news, the market is a mess. I could have as easily said "horrible" instead of "great." There were a lot of surprised faces when I replied. It made me thankful that I live in DC. (Again! Maybe I should write a goofy FB parody about 25 things I love about DC. Hmm.)
Matthew is a home inspector in SC and owns his own inspection company, Live Oak. After returning to this subject again and again, I gave him a call. I was curious: was business SO bad in SC that I should have expected that reaction from people? According to the number of home inspections he's completed this year, no. Business is not that bad. It's on par with last years numbers. He's owned his own company for 3 years and it's growing. About half of his inspections have been foreclosures. Contracts are on the rise. Are they at the same level as five years ago? Nope. But it's not completely dead.
That just goes to show you how each real estate market is really localized. As I often discuss on this blog, business isn't horrible. It isn't where it was in '07 but it's not as bad as '08. That's progress! Maybe a recovery IS coming.
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