Grand Strand Sales ~ Condos down 41% / Homes down 17%

Grand Strand condominium sales dropped 41 percent in the first quarter, falling to a sales level that’s lower than in the same quarter in the past three years - and the largest quarterly drop in sales in the past year.

• The drop didn’t surprise real estate analysts, considering the market’s investor exodus and skyrocketing insurance costs.

• But they were surprised that condo sales didn’t at least grow above 2004 levels, when 1,040 condos sold on the Grand Strand.

• This year in the first quarter 901 sold on the Strand, according to the Multiple Listing Service for Horry and Georgetown counties.

The question is: when does the condo market stop dropping and start going up?

• “We have about 9,000 condos [on the market] and sales about 10 percent of that. That’s a pretty large imbalance,” said research economist Don Schunk at Coastal Carolina University.

• Schunk says condos will take much longer than single family homes to get back into balance.

• The investors that bought when prices were high don’t have much wiggle room to drop prices, said Tom Maeser, market analyst and president of the Fortune Academy of Real Estate.

• “They’re not wanting to take a loss, so they’re holding on. It’s kind of a standoff right now,” he said. “Everybody I know is starting to feel that buyers are starting to make more decisions realizing that [reducing prices are] not going to last too much longer.”

Single family homes

First-quarter sales for single-family homes also dropped - 17 percent, to 1,090 from 1,311 - also the largest quarterly drop in the past year.

• In the fourth quarter, single-family-home sales fell 4 percent.

• But it’s the second-best year since records have been kept for home sales, down from 2006 but up from 2005 when 932 homes were sold.

• While the single-family market looks like it’s experienced a sharp drop, Schunk said it’s just getting back in line with sales for a normal market after a market peak in the first quarter of 2006.

• “The drop in single-family sales is not that big of a concern. The overall trend is still going up,” he said. “But with the condo market, it’s a different story.”

• Maeser and Schunk expect a pickup in single-family sales from first quarter to second quarter, but not enough to beat 2006 sales levels.

Source: Jenny Burns, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach