Charlottesville's Real Estate Blog. Buyer &/or Seller Representation, Real Estate News
today from four fifteen to five o’clock pm – please feel free to let me know in advance if there are any topics or questions you would like us to discuss or call in – 434-977-1070.
…Since 2006 there have been more than 1.5 million layoffs from home builders – that’s more than 3x the total number of UAW members (and that 1.5 million figure doesn’t include suppliers).
In a real sign of the time, Piedmont Housing Alliance is offering this seminar – Wednesday, 14 January 200911:30 to 1 pm111 Monticello Ave, Suite 104 Open to the public – Free – (and bring your own lunch) · How long will the bankruptcy stay on my credit? … View Larger Map Limited Seating-Reserve Your Seat CALL 434-817-2436 or email: info@piedmonthousing.org 
My definition of Shadow Inventory, specific to the Charlottesville market – Homes that are still for sale but have been withdrawn from the market for any number of reasons – to make the home appear less “stale,” to take a break for the holidays, or most likely – because the seller was unable to sell the home and was able to rent it, even though that rent may or may not pay the monthly mortgage … … I’m working on finding how many housing units we have in the Charlottesville area … as I noted earlier this year , Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville had .03% and .02% respectively of housing inventory as being in foreclosure … if that were to triple (and I suspect this might be likely), we’d have a real shadow inventory issue to deal with.
From my position as a Buyer-Broker , my advice to my buyers would be – be well qualified and prepared to buy and consider targeting these neighborhoods; they are all very well located with great respective proximities to the University of Virginia Grounds and/or the Downtown Mall – the two major economic hubs of Charlottesville.
…Extent of Crisis, Virginia: The Center for Responsible Lending predicted that 62,174 homes will be foreclosed upon in 2008 and 2009 in the state of Virginia.38 In June 2008, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, for the foreclosures in the state of Virginia, 54% of them are on subprime and Alt-A loans—“non-traditional†loans while 26% of the foreclosures are on prime and government ARMs and the remaining 20% are on government and prime fixed rate loans.39 In other words, approximately 80% of the foreclosures in Virginia are by higher risk borrowers—subprime lenders and/or ARMs.
Agent Genius had the story last week, and today Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture lays into the National Association of Realtors with blunt words and a big stick. … I have defined my business and writing on its honesty, candor and lack of spin – which would have been much more difficult to accomplish without the NAR foil.
And it’s the holiday edition at real/diaBlog . I always forget to submit a post for the Carnival.
The impact that real estate blogging has had on the real estate (and the impact yet to be effected) industry is remarkable and incalculable. 
Over the past four years, I’ve written a lot – at Bloodhound Blog , currently write at Agent Genius , RealCrozetVA since September 2005 , recently started RealWaynesboroVA … and have more ideas than time for what I have yet to even begin to accomplish in the blogging space. … Thanks to the Internet Archive (which doesn’t seem to be archiving anymore) – here’s a brief look back at four years of blogging – Believe it or not, my original blog is still up and hosted on my dot mac account ; running on the iblog blogging platform – Early 2005 
Lessons learned – 1) Don’t do that.