Real Estate in Durham with Sidetrips to Chapel Hill and elsewhere in the Triangle
Think you can’t afford a Durham home? Right now, there are 95 homes in Durham listed for less than $50,000! With an FHA loan you would need $1,750 as a down payment, then have loan payments of less than $400 per month!
See for yourself how $50,000 could make you a Durham homeowner! If you would like more info on any of these properties, send me an email and we’ll get you started on your first home!
This Friday’s premier of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides will be extra special for south Durham as it is the Grand Opening for Southpoint Cinema’s new IMAX screen. While the theater has not announced a complete set of show times, the 7PM showing is the official opening of the screen. Southpoint’s new IMAX theater is the third in the Triangle and the first in Durham — the other two are the Regal Crossroads Stadium 20 in Cary and the Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh.
Want to get into the first showing for free? There are two ways. Stone Theatres [the owners of Southpoint Cinemas] will be giving away free tickets to the first 200 people in line to catch the first showing on Friday. If you can’t stand in line for hours, go to triangle.com. There are some hoops to go through, but they are giving away a set of free ticket every day until Thursday.
An IMAX theater will be a great addition to Durham, We hope to see you there!
Normally I would try to come up with something witty to lead off the monthly stats article, but I admit I’m uninspired this month. Let’s go straight to the numbers shall we?
For all of Durham County there were 2581 homes listed for sale at the end of April – an increase of a couple percent. 230 sales closed in April, an increase of 22% [that makes an increase of over 60% since February]. Using April figures, it would take 11.2 months to work through our current inventory which is a decline of 2.2 months [and almost 5 months since February].
In South Durham (*) 1046 homes were listed for sale at the end of April – an increase of just 2%. 88 sales closed in April, an increase of 27%, and more than double February’s total. It would take 11.9 months like April to work our way through all the available homes, a decline of 3 months, and a drop of 11 months since February.
As predicted, the surge of homes entering the market has moderated and the buyers who entered the market in February are starting to close on their new homes. Don’t get me wrong — these numbers have plenty of room for improvement. Normally we would like to see adsorption rates down in the 6-8 month range, but compared to earlier this year this is a drastic improvement
Here’s the updated neighborhood information, with some of our new neighborhoods.
| Total Available Listings | Total Closed Sales | Adsorption Rate [in months] | Avg Sale Price | |
| Woodcroft | 94 | 14 | 6.7 [-10.0] | $222,464 98% of list price |
| Hope Valley Farms | 95 | 7 | 13.6 [-2.1] | $165,875 93% of list price |
| Woodlake | 35 | 3 | 11.7 [-5.3] | $195,000 97% of list price |
| Parkwood | 37 | 2 | 18.5 [+2.5] | $117,000 93% of list price |
| Chancellors Ridge | 30 | 1 | 30.0 | $249,000 96% of list price |
| Grandale | 7 | 0 | N/A | N/A |
| Audubon Park | 9 | 1 | 9 [-3.0] | $200,000 94% of list price |
| Falconbridge | 21 | 3 | 7 [+0.3] | $276,333 95% of list price |
| Fairfield | 12 | 5 | 2.4 | $331,300 97% of list price |
| Marydell Estates | 4 | 1 | 4 [0.0] | $389,900
100% of list price |
At the neighborhood level the numbers are uneven — Woodcroft, for example, had an amazing month while Parkwood barely nudged the needle. In fact, Parkwood didn’t even keep it’s place in the “big 3″ as Fairlield saw seven closings in April.
[As an aside -- how much did losing the library hurt Parkwood home values? While it was in Parkwood there was a nice light commercial anchor right inside the community. now there are some small stores and offices, but nothing to really anchor the community. Please share your thoughts in the comments]
Where do we go from here? As I said above, these numbers area vast improvement from earlier this year, but they still have a ways to go. I expect we will see some improvement in May and June, but noting like we’ve seen in March and April. If we are lucky, this will allow us to work through some of the excess inventory and bring the overall market close to balance.
One other thing to watch out for as we move forward is the ratio of sale to list price. In previous months that has been generally been around 97-98%, but in April we saw several communities in the 93-94% range. There could be several reasons for this, and some of them are good news, so it is something we will keep an eye on.
As you can see in the April sales numbers, homes are still selling in south Durham. If you are interested in seeing how your home would fare on the market, or just want to see some of the homes available, please send me an email and we’ll gladly get started. Have a good May.
