MidlandsTrends | February 2010 - Lexington County had a very strong December in commercial real estate with 15 transactions. That may not sound like much, but it's the second busiest month for commercial activity in the county for the year. Lexington also boasted the most real estate activity for the year dollar-volume-wise in December with $99 million in transactions.

A new metric we'll begin to track is average price per square foot for single-family residences sold in Lexington and Richland County, in the chart above. A cursory looks says these numbers are too low to be correct; but a further inspection gives the explanation. Over 600 single-family property transactions in these two counties consisted of foreclosures in 2009, that's an average of >25 foreclosures per month in each county. The flip side is that a large number of single-family property transactions involved individuals and investors buying REO's from the lenders at a reduced rate; both phenomena lending to a lower than typical price per square foot ratio.

Though it's no secret to real estate professionals, this chart also backs the theory that May, June, July and August are the best months to sell a home with consistently higher prices per square foot. The boost in prices and number of sales at year end is assuredly attributable to the Home Buyers Tax Credit. With the tax credit's extension through April 30, 2010 (good on purchased closed through June 30, 2010), we can expect this artificial rise in home prices to trail off come mid-2010.