New Bern NC Home sales

Building permits, not inspections, in Craven County are up significantly year over year. I am referring to Craven County permits only and not the city of New Bern or Havelock. I will try to start tracking city permits as well.




For the month of May, 2010, there were 127 homes that closed in our entire MLS. Of these only 13 were over $250,000. This compares to 107 that closed in May of 2009 of which 12 were over $250,000.



There are currently 312 new homes for sale and 36 sold in the month of May. This means we have almost one year of new home inventory on the market. Be careful builders.



Since there were 104 homes that closed in April 2010 and 127 in May 2010 can we conclude that with the ending of the first time homebuyers tax credit, sales have not been negatively affected?

Not yet, because even though the program ended in April, many of the sales that were initiated because of the program did not close until May. You had to be under contract by the end of April but have until the end of June to close.



One concern of mine is the increase of inventory of existing homes we are seeing. I believe many folks who did not sell their home the first go around have put their home on the market at this time thinking that late spring, summer is the time to sell. This has resulted in somewhat of an excess of inventory(almost 17 months worth at the current absortion rate) and will put pressure on folks to reduce their price in order to sell. If I did not have to sell my house I would not put it on the market at this time.