Is Our Market Slowing Down, or Just Back to Normal?

Have you noticed the "for sale" signs staying up longer this year? You are not imagining it. Homes in our area are taking longer to sell than they did in the spring, and I get asked about this almost every week. So let me walk you through the real numbers, not only the headlines.

Where things stand right now

Across Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, and Beaufort, the median time a home sits on the market reached 92 days in September. Back in May, that number was 73 days. That is almost three weeks longer, in only a few months.

At the same time, the number of homes for sale has not grown the way you might expect. Active listings in our area stood at 2,493 in August, actually a little lower than the 2,728 we saw in May. The median listing price has settled too, down to $499,900 in August from a high near $547,000 in April.

In Beaufort County, Zillow counted 2,352 homes for sale as of the end of July, with 525 new listings that month. Homes that do go under contract take a median of 43 days to get there. Sellers are still doing well: the median sale-to-list ratio in the county is 97.4 percent, even though a little over three in four sales close slightly under the asking price. In the city of Beaufort itself, Realtor.com called August a balanced market, with homes selling for about 98 percent of asking price.

One area, three different markets

Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, and Beaufort are three different real estate markets, even though people often lump them together as "the Lowcountry." A condo near the beach on Hilton Head Island, a new build off Buckwalter Parkway in Bluffton, and a historic home in downtown Beaufort do not move on the same timeline or for the same reasons. If you want to know what is really happening with your home or the home you want to buy, the areawide numbers are only the starting point. The neighborhood numbers tell the real story.

Two different pasts

When I talk with sellers, many are still thinking of 2021 and 2022, when homes here sold in weeks and often over asking. When I talk with buyers, many are thinking further back, to right before the pandemic, when a similar home cost close to half of today's price, often without a single update. Both of those moments really happened. Neither one is where we are right now.

Here is what the numbers actually show. In 2019, homes in our area sat on the market close to 100 days on average. During 2021 and 2022, that dropped to as little as a month. Today we are back to around 90 days, almost exactly where we were before the pandemic. Prices moved the same way. The median listing price here was around $433,000 in 2019. It reached close to $650,000 at the peak in 2022. Today it sits around $497,000: well above 2019, well below 2022.

What I see when I look closely at the sales, not just the averages, is this: a home that is updated, priced honestly, and shown well is still selling close to asking price, often quickly. A home that needs work, or is priced for 2022, tends to sit. Nationally, Zillow found something similar this year: move-in ready and remodeled homes are selling for 2 to 3 percent above expected, while homes that still need work are selling for about 14 percent less, the widest gap they have measured in years. I see the same thing happening here.

So my honest advice is this. To sellers: price for the market we are actually in, not for what the house down the street sold for in 2022. The homes that still sell fast and close to asking are the ones priced and presented for today. To buyers: I would not wait for 2019 prices to come back. I have not seen anything that tells me they will. What you do have now is time, so use it, ask questions, negotiate, and do not settle for a home priced for a year that has already passed.

My honest take

I do not see this as a market in trouble. I see it as a market finding its footing again after a few unusual years. Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, and Beaufort are still special places, and people are still moving here for the water, the climate, and the life they can build here, not to forget the amazing golf courses. The homes that sell well right now are not lucky. They are priced and presented for today.

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Warm regards,
Loni 

If you want to know what any of this means for your own home or your own search in Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, or Beaufort, reach out anytime. I am happy to look at the numbers for your specific neighborhood together.

This article was created with the help of AI and reviewed by Loni Lueke, The German Realtor.