Local home sales showed slight improvement in February as realtors and homebuilders hoped the newly sunny skies and blooming azaleas will bring out buyers in force this spring.
About 316 homes were sold in February in Chatham, Bryan and Effingham counties, a 6 percent increase over the year and about three more units than in January, according to data from the Savannah Multi-List Corp.
Median home prices, meanwhile, remained flat from last month, at $160,000, indicating 2013 had gotten off to a slow start.
“Spring is historically our strongest market, so we will see an increase in listings and sales over the next few months,” said Jennifer Scroggs, president of the Savannah Area Realtors.
With 2,948 active listings, inventory ticked up to nine months, about a month more than last year. Scroggs said more people see it as a good time to sell and are putting homes on the market.
She said in addition to pre-owned homes, new construction is up, so a portion of the inventory increase is a result of builder starts.
Despite a sag in homebuilder confidence nationally, Mark Bouy, president of the local Home Builders Association, said he had seen an increase in activity over the last few weeks.
“(The) weather has kept people at work, but traffic has been up over the last two weeks,” said Bouy. “There’s pent-up money — people have been sitting on the sidelines, waiting to be able to go ahead and pursue buying a new home.”
New home contracts for the greater Savannah area increased by 6 percent over the year, led by Effingham County, up 58 percent and then Bryan County.