I've finished my end of year report for the Fayetteville NC Homes market existing construction segment. Its taken me far to long to get the numbers posted but I promise to do better going forward. I will publish separate reports for new construction and the broader Fayetteville real estate markets in the next couple of weeks.

This graph is showing existing home prices in the Fayetteville NC homes market for the last 3 years. Obviously prices are moving higher.

The rate of change, about 3.2% appreciation, has slowed form EOY 2007s report but in comparison to the national market Fayetteville is still in pretty good shape.

Look for prices to remain consistent with some appreciation in 2009 as Fort Bragg's troop movements continue to stabilize Fayetteville NC home prices.

The number of Fayetteville NC homes sold decreased slightly this past year due to a further deteriorating credit market. The good news is the decline in the number of homes sold has slowed a great deal. This may be a signal that the worst has come and a bottom is forming.

In 2008 4592 existing construction homes sold in the Fayetteville NC housing market a decrease of 4 percent. Far more palatable than the 17 percent change in 2007.

Percent of listing price for Fayetteville homes fell 37 hundredths of a percent or .0037 to 97.15 percent. This number tells us that buyers are paying sellers 97.15% of their asking price. This is small change from last year and 2006 for that matter. This is another indication that prices remain stable for Fayetteville real estate.

Average days on market as reported by the Fayetteville NC MLS was 76 days for the year 2008. This number carries a considerable degree of error for reasons I won't go into here. Still it's the best number we have from the MLS. It's a lagging indicator because it tells us what has happened.

To determine what may happen we calculate the absorption rate which tells us we have about 194 days of inventory on the market. This indicates we are still in a fairly balanced existing homes market only slightly favoring buyers. Less than six months of inventory indicates a sellers market, more than six months indicates a buyers market.

The bottom line here is most existing homes for sale in Fayetteville NC are selling between 76 and 194 days on market.