Real Estate Showings for the Charleston, SC Market

When buyers want to make an appointment to see homes for sale, their real estate agents use Charleston’s showing appointment agency, Centralized Showing Service (CSS), to make the appointments.  These statistics were taken from CSS for the last two months, so they’re the most up to date stats available.  I’ve divided the statistics by general area and by price range. 

Showings are up about 24 percent in the past two months for the main Charleston area (downtown, James Island, Johns Island, West Ashley, and Mt. Pleasant).  In the second week of June, there were 1,114 showings for these areas in the price range of $200,000 to $450,000.  One month later, showings jumped to 1,295.  Last week, there were 1,385 showings for this price range in these areas.

For these areas, homes in higher price ranges are not getting the increased number of showings, however.  In fact, in the price of $450K to $700K, showings have remained about the same.  For the second week of June, there were 430 showings for homes.  The second week of July, there were 436 showings.  For the second week of August (which was last week), this number went back down to 424.  So, on average, the number of showings is quite stable in the higher price ranges. 

This isn’t necessarily bad news – at least the numbers aren’t going down.  But, it’s also not very good news for sellers in the higher end of real estate.  In short, homes in the lower price bracket are seeing increasingly more showing activity, while homes in the higher price ranges are getting about the same number of showings as they were two months ago.

Statistics for home showings are slightly higher for the more affordable areas of Charleston (the areas further inland including Summerville, Goose Creek, and North Charleston).  For the price range of $100K to $350K in these areas, showings spiked during the beginning of July but have since slowly gone back down to the numbers that we saw 2 months ago.  In the second week of June, there were 1,257 showings.  The number of showings steadily increased, peaking 1,458 the third week of July.  That’s a 16 percent increase.  However, in the last few weeks, showings have cooled down a bit.  The first week of August there were 1,378 showings, while last week this number jumped back down to 1,286.  Although this number is still slightly higher than the same week two months ago, we’ll have to look at showings in the coming months to see whether appointments remain stable or increase dramatically again.

For these areas in the higher price range of $350K to $600K, there has also been an increase in showings.  In the second week of June, there were 64 showings, and one month later there were 78.  Showings peaked at 96 for the third week of July, which is the same week that showings peaked in the lower price bracket.  Last week, the second week of August, showings were at 82.  So overall, we’re seeing a gradual increase in showings for the higher end properties of Summerville, North Charleston, and Goose Creek.