Update 13 March 2023 – Not sure what happened to the image files in this post; I’m working on it.

Numbers matter. So does perception.

Short story: We need more housing inventory. Housing inventory in the City of Charlottesville is something I’ve written about since I started writing RealCentralVA in 2005, and it’s something I’ll probably be writing about for the next many years.

For this post, I looked only at single family + attached homes in the City of Charlottesville. Yes, condos are a part of the market – a reasonable percentage even, but I wanted to focus purely on detached and attached homes for this post. Curious about condos? Happy to run those too; just let me know.

2022 was a big year for new construction prices in the City of Charlottesville … median prices of $775K and average prices of $767K for newly built homes in the City of Charlottesville are big numbers. Real big. But then you look and see that only 18 new attached or single family homes were sold (per the Charlottesville MLS), and 13 of those 18 homes were in the Lochlyn Hill neighborhood, and you start to understand a bit more.

What will prices do in 2023?

I’ll tell you in 2024.

My advice remains consistent – if you feel comfortable with the area, your life, your work, and think you want more agency over where you live, buying a home in Charlottesville or Albemarle might be the right decision.

I’m happy to have coffee with you if you’re interested in talking more about the market. “Home Prices” is a nebulous phrase. “How much will a house cost that I can afford and will be happy in?” is a better question and conversation.

“How many homes will come on the market that fit?” is a different and even better conversation.

It would be amazing if the City of Charlottesville would have the political will to think generationally about housing, growth, transportation.

I’ll dig into the whole of Albemarle County another day, but for now this is the story I wrote last month about the Crozet real estate market.

Short summary: low inventory + good demand = reasonable real estate market.

Showing my work.

From the MLS – I manually did every search with the appropriate criteria; I know there are easier ways to do this, but I prefer to see the numbers.