Hattiesburg Mississippi Real Estate Housing.

Housing market is 'balanced,' realtors say

The supreme woes and subsequent problems that have wracked the national real estate market recently do not reflect the state of Hattiesburg's real estate market, Hattiesburg Board of Realtors President Sue Gallaspy said at a press conference Wednesday.

"Not only have we not been affected by what's going on nationally," Gallaspy said, "we're growing."

Local conditions play the biggest role in local real estate markets, said Broker Associate Adam Watkins of the DeLois Smith AllStar Team, making the notion of a national real estate market not entirely accurate.

"The term 'national' market is a little misleading," he said, "because real estate is a local market. There are economic factors in each market that can affect them differently."

The subprime mortgage collapse barely has affected the local real estate market, Gallaspy said, although it has caused lenders to become more cautious about the loans they underwrite.

"I think our lenders learned from that," she said. "You have to have good credit, and you can't buy a home if you have bad credit."

Dealing with local lenders, real estate agent DeLois Smith said, may keep buyers from getting in over their heads.

"If you deal with a local lender with a good reputation," Smith said, "they will be there to help with your financial needs in the long term."

While real estate agents acknowledged a number of reduced-price homes on the market, the majority of those homes were not originally priced at market value.

"Sometimes a seller will want to sell their home for a price that's above its market value," Smith said. "If they choose a price at market value, they won't have to reduce that price later."

Gallaspy characterized the Hattiesburg market as a balanced one, favoring neither buyer nor seller. The average price of a home in the Hattiesburg area for the month of July was $150,414, lower than the $154,500 average in January.

A house stayed on the market an average of 71 days in July compared with 72 days in January. The number of houses sold in the Hattiesburg area also increased from 113 homes in January - traditionally a slow month - to 197 in July.

While the demand for housing caused by Hurricane Katrina has slowed, Gallaspy said, there is a greater supply of homes on the market and more time for prospective buyers to make a decision.

Several factors continue to keep the Hattiesburg market growing, Gallaspy said, including the medical industry, universities and Camp Shelby.

These industries, Gallaspy said, also provide a transient population, which causes turnover in the market.

"We feel a little insulated because people are still coming in," she said. "We have a very large transient community, in large part because of the medical industry continuing to bring people in with new families."

The market should continue to be balanced, Gallaspy said, because of projects designed to bring further diversity to the Hattiesburg area, including the USM Commercialization and Innovation Park, the Howard Technology Park, the Richton salt dome project and continuing commercial development in the Hattiesburg area.

"This diversity continues to protect Hattiesburg against adverse economic conditions," she said, "and provides for growth even when other economies in our country or region may not be growing."

Meanwhile, the current interest rate on a fixed, 30-year mortgage is 6.25 percent, real estate agent Wesley Breland said, which is relatively low.