Browsing Category Albemarle

Case Shiller’s Perspective on the Charlottesville Real Estate Market

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Case Shiller doesn’t track the Charlottesville real estate market. Nor Albemarle, Greene, Fluvanna, Nelson, Waynesboro, Augusta … Case Schiller doesn’t track Charlottesville.

I wrote in early 2008 that The Charlottesville/Central Virginia/Shenandoah Valley markets are not covered by the Case-Shiller index. Real estate is local; while trends may be drawn from this type of research, and while the proverbial turned-corner may still be just over the horizon, it’s important to put his study in the appropriate context.

Crap. That “horizon” to which I referred is still a ways off. But … what I said remains true. Case Schiller doesn’t track our market.

But.

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Walk Score of Charlottesville, Virginia

What is Walking Distance to You? (in Charlottesville)

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“Walkable houses in Charlottesville” – one of the more frequent requests I get both from buyer clients and from visitors to this site.

But “walkable” means different things to different people.

Clarifying and pulling out buyers’ true intents is one of the most useful skills a good real estate agent brings to the table. For example, when a new buyer client tells me that he wants to be within “walking distance” of the Downtown Mall, I always follow up with:

“What is walking distance to you?”

Your response of “less than 30 minute walking distance” is why I asked … my non-American-based clients have a much more liberal definition of close (usually less than 30 minutes or 2 miles) than do my American clients (less than 10 minutes or 5 blocks).

So the question is – what does walkable mean to you?

As I do with a lot of the stories that make it to this here real estate blog, I started by asking on the social networks – Twitter, Facebook and Google+

The City of Charlottesville has a lot of highly “walkable” homes, using Walkscore as the guide, and there are an awful lot of condos in the City of Charlottesville that offer walkability.

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UVA Continuing to Grow – Adding Stability to Charlottesville’s Economy

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One of the brightest spots in the Charlottesville area economy is the University of Virginia. Love ’em or hate ’em, they provide stability and opportunity.

Charlottesville Tomorrow reports:

Noticeable at the Planning and Coordination Council meeting was the contrast between the scale and ambition of a university angling to become “the premier undergraduate experience of the Americas” and those of the county government, which has had to cut back construction plans due to ongoing revenue shortfalls.

…
The university is primarily pursuing infill development within the current grounds, but is still aggressively expanding capacity. This is largely due to an agreement with the state government to increase undergraduate enrollment by 1,400 students by 2018, which is in addition to an increase of 271 outstanding from a previous plan.

While the University grows, the City and County continue to struggle.

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City-County Revenue Sharing, Albemarle County Redistricting and Property Taxes

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Three big stories if you live in (or are considering moving to) Albemarle County:

– Your elementary schools need balancing and need to be redistricted. (always check your school district before you buy!)

(Update: these are the options for redistricting Hollymead and Baker Butler)

– Rob Bell is seeking to revisit the revenue sharing agreement between the City of Charlottesville and the County of Albemarle. (

– Albemarle County is working on its budget for the next fiscal year.

Now would be a good time to start paying attention to these three stories that will be bigger when they actually happen, as is usually the case.

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Albemarle County Real Estate Update – The first Ten Months of 2011

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One big notation: I’m no longer comparing today’s real estate market; what happened in 2005 – 2007 and before is interesting, curious, anomalous and ultimately irrelevant to today’s real estate market. EVERYTHING is different now – interest rates, economic outlook, international economic events, gas prices, employment trends – making comparisons between this market and that market is a distraction.

First, the bullet points:

– New Listings – Fewer than the past two years and trending down; this is a very good thing. As fewer houses come on the market, more houses will sell and we’l be able to find our way through the current spate of houses on the market. *

– New Pendings (Better reflecting current market activity) –

– Median Sales Price (for all properties) – Lower than last year, trending up.

* I’m not totally convinced that the houses that are coming on the market in the Charlottesville and Albemarle real estate market are the ones that buyers want to buy – whether size or energy efficiencies, I think that the inventory we’ve seen over the past 18 months has not quite matched to what buyers want, and this is a reason that we’ve seen the new construction market in the Charlottesville area do so well.

iMPORTANCE OF HOME’S ENviRONMENTALLy FRiENDLy FEATuRES

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