You read the headline correctly. The number of single family home sales in Mecklenburg hit a five year high in August. I have been tracking the number of home sales month after month since 2004. There were 1069 home sales in Mecklenburg County last month. The last time that statistic was higher was in September of 2007, which is interestingly right before the real estate market started to feel the effects of the slowdown. So, although many homeowners would like to see their home price back at 2007 levels, demand and the number of sales seems indicate that we are back to a healthy market.

The recession of 2008-2011 reset real estate prices that appreciated too quickly because of a snowball effect in the mortgage & financial markets. Eventually we’ll get back to those peak prices, but it might take a few more years. But I think it is safe to say that our current real estate market is healthy again. Historically, and prior to the boom/bust, Charlotte prices appreciated by approximately 3-5% per year. Today we released our monthly E-Newsletter and reported the market stats for August which show that both median and average sales prices are up around 5% from last year. And there’s no sign of a fall slowdown yet as pending home sales are still holding relatively steady from the month before and are still up 36% from last year.

Here’s a sneak peak at the numbers when comparing August 2012 to the same month last year:

Home sales are up 25%
Average sales price is up 4.8%
Median sales price is up 6.9%
Average time on market is down 10%
Pending home sales are up 36%
Housing supply is down 21%
Mortgage rates are at 3.6% down from 4.27%