I tried to show a house this weekend.

The house is priced well – $260,000 below its first asking price last year, 38% of its original asking price. It’s owned by an LLC and is a short sale.

The house is in a neighborhood that could stand for a bit of good news.

Here’s the thing …

The lockbox doesn’t work and apparently hasn’t worked for many months; another Charlottesville Realtor told me that he had tried to show the house five times, to no avail … seven months ago.

This is an exceptional situation, but it’s unacceptable, and there is little that I can do. But I’m left agreeing with my clients that the Realtor isn’t doing his job, that the house might have been worth something nine months ago.

The house is deteriorating, caving in on itself and dying. Weeds are growing where they shouldn’t be. Windows are fogging. Houses, like humans, need to be lived in.

It’s wrong. It’s sad – for the house, for the sellers, for the neighborhood, for the market.

The challenge with looking for homes in the Charlottesville area is that while inventory is up, quality inventory has been fairly stagnant.

Think about this – nearly 28% of the houses currently on the market in the Charlottesville MSA are vacant – that’s about 700 homes. About 40% of those have been on the market for at least six months. About 155 homes have been on the market for at least a year. 72 of these vacant homes have been on the market for at least 600 days. Allegedly, only two of those 72 are short sales.