Congratulations Charleston, we’ve made another Forbes cream-of-the-crop list!

We came in #8 on the ‘America’s 25 Strongest Housing Markets’ list this year.

For all the flippers and investors out there, don’t jump in yet though; according to Forbes, you should wait until the end of ’09 – maybe so they can buy everything up first. Of course, I don’t think the ‘blue blood’ S.O.B.* residents on the Charleston Battery will be going anywhere anytime soon!

Charleston stats qualifying it for the Forbes list this year

Now we can look forward to more development & traffic, and even less green spaces.

For the current real estate market around Shem Creek and surrounding Charleston areas, just check the Charleston Real Estate page.

Data was provided by Moody’s Economy.com. It looked at metro areas with populations over 500,000 to find those closest to recovery. The firm prepared forecasts through 2011 and compared them to prices in the second quarter of 2008, which are the latest figures available, to calculate how far prices will likely fall before reaching bottom. The percent figures are price drops between second quarter 2008 and the projected bottom. Cities are listed by their percent change to bottom.

* For those unfamiliar, no harm intended. S.O.B. is a common term here in Charleston – it stands for South of Broad, the main street through downtown Charleston that separates the wealthy from the very wealthy, i.e. prime property – including the Charleston Battery on the waterfront.

Locals, and even those that have been here for 15 years or so, can remember times before the Mark Clark, before Park West, when McDonald’s was across the street from Burger King here on Coleman, Bee’s Knees, the old water slide, and so many other landmarks that made us happy to be here.

A’las, those good ol’ days are history now, but the same people that came rushing in on the construction boom are a lot of the same ones suffering through the nation’s mortgage crisis right now. Checkout this infograph the NYT’s did illustrating the nation’s foreclosure market.

No doubt it’s tough out there for many, and it looks to get worse over the next year at least going forward. There are good finds for those looking in the right spots though. Sure, it’s all about location, location, location, but Charleston real estate will always be a hot commodity.

Anyway, I think the lesson learned here is to not live outside your means, and always protect yourself financially against the worst of times. Those with safe, secure jobs, are fortunate and should do whatever necessary to make sure it stays that way, but helping out others in need along the way isn’t such a bad idea either – you’ll be glad you did. G/L out there.