Watching this week’s Altos market update video made me curious.* How many homes in Charlottesville + Albemarle are going under contract immediately, as in, in 1 day or less?

So I ran the numbers, because just a top-level look doesn’t tell the story.

In Charlottesville & Albemarle:

— 2,232 not-new construction contracts were written between January 1 2021 and November 14 2021

– 129 had Days on Market of 0, and 225 had Days on Market of 1 or 0

— 1,812 in 1/1/18 – 1/14/18

– 110 DOM had Days on Market of 0, 172 had Days on Market of 1 or 0

But those numbers do not account for the scenario that emerged during the pandemic hot market: Many homes would come on the market mid-week, say Thursday, and then offers reviewed on Monday. I don’t remember the “come on the market, and wait for piles of offers to come” tactic as having existed in our market before the pandemic.

— 2,232 not-new construction contracts were written between January 1 2021 and November 14 2021.

– 1,056 with DOM of 5 or fewer – or nearly 2X the number in 2018

— 1,812 in 1/1/18 – 1/14/18

– 546 DOM of 5 or fewer

It’s hard to compare markets, and what happened in 2018 does not affect the decisions that buyers and sellers have to make in the 2021 market. Today’s market is our version of normal, and 2022’s will be that version of normal, and on and on.

*curiosity is how I glean insight into these things, and also knowing the market well enough to question numbers that don’t look quite right.