This week our listings saw an average of 1.3 each.   Showing traffic is as expected given the holiday season.   Activity will likely slow to a halt for the next two weeks, then it  will hopefully begin on an upward trend in the second week of January.

Our E-newsletter came out this week and with it came the Mecklenburg County stats for November and there was some surprising news revealed.   Here’s a summary of the stats:

Home sales down 24.8%

Average sales price up 9% to $261,710

Average days on market up 8.6% to 76 days

Pending home sales down 35.3%

Housing supply  up 31.4%

Mortgage rates down 1/2% to 6.2%

The surprise was that home sales show a 9% gain over this time last year when all other stats show a slowing market.   I was very intrigued and confused by that stat so I did some additional digging.   As it turns out, there were two home sales in November over $3 million.   One selling for  $3.3 million and the other for just over $6.3 million.   The $6.3 million sale was the highest recorded sale price I could find in our MLS in history.   (For trivia fanatics,  the buyer  was the ex-wife of NASCAR driver, Jeff Gordon.)

Its nice to know that the Charlotte area can command that kind of money for real estate.   However, I must clarify how that one sale  has impacted the overall average.   If I eliminate those two sales above $3 million, the average sales price in Mecklenburg county comes to $251,000 which is an increase of 4.5%, still not too shabby but not the 9% that is being reported.   This is an excellent example of why many national reports use median home prices instead of averages.   Unfortunately, median data is not readily available in our MLS today.   Hopefully, its on the way.