Real estate market stays steady in slow economy
Good luck trying to find a real estate agent in Fayetteville who doesn't have a certain copy of Parade magazine in his office.
The Parade that landed on doorsteps across the country May 3 shined a pretty positive light on the market in which they make their living.
"As most of the country struggles with the worst housing slump in 70 years, maybe we could all learn from Fayetteville, N.C.," wrote Parade.
"There aren't any billionaire real-estate developers in Fayetteville. There aren't many mansions either. New homes sell for an average of $202,000, and it's possible to buy an older three-bedroom house for less than $100,000," reported the publication. "At the same time, Fayetteville is one of the places in the U.S. where housing is still appreciating. Values rose a nation-leading 6.9% in 2008, according to the property-estimation firm Zillow.com, and are steady so far this year."
A little over one month later, BusinessWeek offered up the city as a contrast to ones such as Merced, Calif., where analysts say the market could hit bottom by mid- to late 2010.
"In places like Bloomington, Ind., and Fayetteville, N.C., where homeowners are in much better shape, the markets should be more resilient," wrote BusinessWeek.
Of course, all of this national attention doesn't mean much for owners of homes that sat on the market for months in 2008 and 2009. And those do exist.
While a large military presence has helped shield the market to some extent, it hasn't protected it entirely from the impact of tighter lending restrictions.
After years of increase in local home sales, about 576 fewer homes sold in 2008 than did in 2007 in the eight-county area tracked by the Multiple Listing Service for the Fayetteville Regional Association of Realtors.
And 2009 started out less auspicious than that. Roughly 690 fewer new and existing homes closed between January and May of 2009 than closed from January through May of 2008.