(Some) Real Estate Prices up in Charlottesville and Albemarle

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Are we in a bottom?

Looking at some real estate data the other day, I came to a conclusion: for some segments of the Charlottesville real estate market, we might actually be in the “bottom” – bottom meaning that prices are either not declining anymore or are in fact, wait for it … rising.

This belief was bolstered further when I looked at some of the numbers –

May, June, July – for the Charlottesville MSA, Year over Year:

– 777 homes (condo, single family, town home) sold this year versus 709 last year – an increase in volume of nearly 9%
– Median Price was up about 5% to $261,645

For the County of Albemarle:

– 418 homes sold versus 375 in this period last year; an increase of about 10%
– Median price was up nearly 12%

For the City of Charlottesville:

– 230 homes sold this year versus 146 last May, June, July; an increase of ~15%
– Median price in the City of Charlottesville rose nearly 8%.

BUT

There are still a lot of people in this market who cannot sell and not lose money – and I think this is going to remain the case for several years. Yes, the above news and data are very positive, and if you’re looking to buy and know you’re going to be here for several years, now could be a tremendous time to buy – you might lament your delay. But … every real estate market is local – down to the individual – and specific.

Moving Median Price for Charlottesville MLS - 2011 - 2012

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C-Ville + WordPress = Great New Site

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C-Ville discovers Wordpress, and the result is pretty slick. Simple, clean design, great font, disqus commenting …

I love that they kept things local:

Ryan DeRose and his company Vibethink—a one-man team when we signed them up, and a five-person shop on the Downtown Mall now—built the new version of c-ville.com. Ryan and Matt Clark, who also worked closely with us, attended Western Albemarle and Nelson County high schools, respectively, so we kept things local. What really sold us on their team was that they shared our ideas about what makes a good local media site, and they cared about our paper’s role in the community. We wanted to make something that was easy to use (for us and for you); we wanted to strip away unnecessary distractions from the content; and we wanted to create a platform that we could constantly modify and improve as things changed. We wanted a site that would show up well on all your devices, that integrated social media seamlessly, and that showcased our photographers and writers.

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NAR’s New Ad: Hit or Miss?

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It’s been a while since I’ve written about the National Association of Realtors and their sometimes mis-guided, self-serving ad campaigns* and lamentably, today is one of those days where I feel I need to say, “I’m a Realtor, but I reject their current ad campaign.”

Renters are positive contributors to society, too, and just like homeowners, some are great, some aren’t. Making renters feel bad about themselves is the best way to try to build favor for the Realtor brand. Alienating a segment of the population, many of who do aspire to be homeowners, is, in a word, stupid.

So, thanks, NAR, for the opportunity to defend myself and use you as the object of derision. I’m glad to work with clients who will be homeowners one day, and while I don’t typically work with renters, I do fins myself in the position frequently where I help them find rentals … for a year, as they are in fact, homebuyers on a delayed timeline.

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Charlottesville Bubble Bloggers’ Take on the Current State of the Market

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It’s not often that I say something is a “must read”, but the Charlottesville Bubble Bloggers’ “Carpe Diem” Trumps “Caveat Emptor” As “Bottom” and “Recovery” Chatter Increase in the Charlottesville Real Estate Market Mid 2012 is such a post.

Broadly-sourced, logically articulated, they debunk a lot of the myths and stories underlying the Charlottesville real estate market – from shadow inventory to Charlottesville’s “protected” nature, to reduced inventories, home prices and more. I highly recommend reading it.

Their closing echoes much of what I have been saying here and in conversations with clients for months:

But for those who have been waiting to buy and waiting to sell, there’s more clarity than ever. The 30 year fixed rate mortgage is currently at 3.6% (Aug. 15). Buyers who have waited for years and are well-cushioned financially aren’t looking at a house as an investment but as a home. For those with stable jobs and a 7-10 year event horizon plus a capacity to absorb price wobbles, buying looks attractive. And there are many equity sellers getting off the fence, realizing that they’ll never get that dream of the missed bubble price: but acknowledging that moving on or moving up and getting things settled has a value greater than money.

If you’re going to buy a home in Charlottesville, understand that now is normal, or as an agent said to me several years ago: “It doesn’t matter whether the real estate market is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – it is.

And so it is.

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Big Data and Civil Rights and Questions about Data’s Intended Uses

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Big data is all the rage right now and it is going to affect virtually everything we do on and off-line.

big data

It is illegal for me to as a Realtor to tell my clients (or anybody) that all the “x race live here;” but would it be illegal for one of the new “lifestyle real estate” search engines to make the same recommendation?

Think about it.

You decide what data is about the moment you define its schema.

With the new, data-is-abundant model, we collect first and ask questions later. The schema comes after the collection. Indeed, big data success stories like Splunk, Palantir, and others are prized because of their ability to make sense of content well after it’s been collected — sometimes called a schema-less query. This means we collect information long before we decide what it’s for.

And this is a dangerous thing.

When bank managers tried to restrict loans to residents of certain areas (known as redlining) Congress stepped in to stop it (with the Fair Housing Act of 1968). They were able to legislate against discrimination, making it illegal to change loan policy based on someone’s race.

“Personalization” is another word for discrimination. We’re not discriminating if we tailor things to you based on what we know about you — right? That’s just better service.

O’Reilly Radar

If one wanted to, one could mashup (I assume, I’m no coder, but I assume anything can be done) the census block data with a real estate search engine and allow consumers to really target where they wanted to live … and next to what kind of person.

One of the most common search queries bringing people to RealCentralVA is “best neighborhoods in Charlottesville” … what does “best neighborhood in Charlottesville” mean to you? Data might probably will be able to answer this … but humans are prohibited from doing so.

Which brings us to this:

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How Much Research do Buyers do On Adjacent Properties?

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As I was pursuing the new listings in the Charlottesville MLS this morning and remarked on Twitter:

I see homes coming on the market and I wonder if buyers will know about adjacent developments coming that will affect them.

Three quick examples to make this point:

1: The Redfields neighborhood on the south east part of Charlottesville.

Redfields may be growing. Or not. But a Wegmans and Costco are coming nearby.

2: Montgomery Ridge in the northern part of Charlottesville.

Monticello United has just gained approval from Albemarle County to build a few soccer fields along Polo Grounds Road; this is great news for soccer players and families and perhaps not great news for those already suffer through long waits at the 29/Polo Ground stoplight.

3. Rio Heights, along the Rio Road

Lochlyn Hill on Rio Road, which looks like a cool neighborhood, is going to change the dynamics for the adjacent neighborhoods.

Three easy examples of forthcoming changes that buyers of homes in those areas need to be aware of … whose responsibility is it to inform the buyers so they can make educated, informed decisions about how they will want to live in five to ten years? Or what their neighborhood might look like to the next buyer?

Ultimately, a buyer needs to do his own due diligence; when working with my buyer clients, I tell them that I try my very best to know what’s happening and what might happen, but realistically, if they don’t own the land around them, it’s going to change.

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