It wasn't hard last week for Donny Moore to decorate his new office at Brenau University's Augusta office on Davis Road. After all, it was just 13 months ago that he had moved all the furniture out of it.
Mr. Moore retired last year from his job as campus director for Brenau with plans to ride his Harley Davidson through the north Georgia mountains and to buy a new home in Alabama with his wife. But those plans were foiled when the country's housing market collapsed.
"Unfortunately we just didn't see the crystal ball that talked about the most devastating economic turn since the Great Depression," said Mr. Moore, who resumed his job at the school last week after failing to sell his Columbia County home.
Mr. Moore's replacement had housing troubles of her own. Angela Elkowitz moved to Augusta to fill his position at the university, but she was also unable to sell her home back in Gainesville, Ga., despite putting it on the market for a year.
Locally, there were 308 fewer homes sold during the first half of 2009 compared with a year ago, according to statistics provided by the Greater Augusta Association of Realtors. The average list price has also fallen from $184,185 in June 2008 to $176,808 last month.
But compared with other markets in the country, Augusta has remained relatively stable, said Ryan Brashear, the Vice President of Brashear Realty Corp. of Augusta. The area has managed to avoid many of the pitfalls associated with the housing crash because people did not dabble in speculation like in other areas, he said. It also doesn't hurt that three of the area's major employers -- Savannah River Site, Fort Gordon and the city's medical centers -- aren't facing the same dire economic situations as those in other states.
"Certainly the housing market isn't what we'd like it to be, but in Augusta it's stable," Mr. Brashear said.
Nationally, builder confidence in the market for new single-family homes rose two points to 17 in July, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. While it still hovers at historically low levels, that number is the highest since September 2008.
But confidence was in short supply for Ms. Elkowitz, at least when it comes to the market. She is now living with her husband near Fort Campbell, Ky.
When he deploys to Afghanistan in January, Ms. Elkowitz said, she will move back to the house in Gainesville. And when he's done, she doesn't think she'll put it on the market again. Renting, she said, sounds so much better.
"It was kind of a little strange the way it all happened," she said.
Reach Adam Folk at (706) 823-3339 or adam.folk@augustachronicle.com.
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