55
ANNUAL
REAL ESTATE
ROUNDUP
BY PAT BRADFORD
think things are really
looking up,” says Coastal Properties’
LaNelle Clontz, who, having joined the
board in 1962, is the senior member of
the Wilmington Regional Association
of Realtors. “I was discouraged there for
a while.”
Her remarks are typical of what area
real estate Brokers are saying.
“The market was drastically better
than the year before, and it started at
the beginning of the year. It was like a
light bulb went off,” says Intracoastal
Realty Broker Keith Beatty, whose team
sold 147 properties and is ranked fifth
in New Hanover County’s agent ranking
with a sales volume of just under
$33 million.
With slightly less than $905 million
in overall sales, it was an encouraging
year in real estate. New Hanover County
experienced better than a 30-percent
increase in sales for 2012 and real estate
agents were thrilled to not only be back
to work but also to post such a strong
increase in properties sold, literally
1,001 more for the year, more than
a 34-percent increase. And the good
news didn’t stop there; at year end there
were an additional 645 properties in
the county waiting to close, a 43-per-cent
increase over the previous year.
More good news — the average days on
market county-wide held steady, while
average and median sales prices edged
up (see chart on page 60). Short sales,
which dominated the county in 2011,
were down 28 percent.
“It was a very solid rebound, the best
in five or six years,” says Vance Young,
the No. 1 selling agent in the county
by sales volume of $50,660,440. “It
didn’t feel like that great a year, but it
just snowballed.”
Ranked No. 2 with 344 sales totaling
$47,210,837 was Buddy Blake. “It was
a good year, a crazy year, a wild ride.
I wasn’t expecting it,” he said.
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