May 2012 Charlottesville Real Estate Market Report

in Albemarle Charlottesville Market statistics on

Dig in. There’s some good news here.

Download the Nest Report for May 2012 here  or read it below.

Of the 189 homes that sold in the Charlottesville MSA since 1 April 2012 with CDOM of less than 30 days:

– the % of list to sell price was about 95%

Of the 213 homes that sold in the same timeframe with CDOM of at least 120 days:

– the % of list to sell price was about 94%.

That looks like price doesn’t matter … until one keeps in mind that in the previous wildly broad and potentially inaccurate perspective, the list to sell ratio data can be so easily skewed.

If you’re looking at the Charlottesville – Albemarle real estate market, focus on your market – your segment of the market. That $1.95 million dollar house above? It’s as relevant to the $245k attached home as the fishing report on Saturn is to whether I’ll catch a fish this weekend.

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Sellers – Don’t Have Stinky Houses, Take 2

in Sellers on

After counting 12 of these in a vacant house I was showing last weekend, I thought re-visiting an old topic was timely.

If you’re selling your house, don’t do this.

Here are five reasons to avoid using air fresheners.

– Smelly things – plug-ins, air fresheners, etc are not good when you’re trying to sell your home.
– They don’t smell good.
– They make buyers question what you’re hiding.
– They detract from our ability to focus on the house because the smell is so overwhelming.
– They’re bad (from a “I’m trying to have my house present as well as possible perspective).

I wrote “Sellers don’t have Stinky Houses” several years ago, and if you’re curious to see how bad video was even a couple years ago, have a look.

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How are Goats Better than Poisons?

in General Real Estate on

How are goats better than weed-eaters?

They’re more efficient and effective, they’re cleaner and greener, and their sound is much more pleasing. Seeing as how I just got re-elected volunteered onto my HOA board, I think I might see if we can get a couple goats to clear our field.

What follows is a story of someone who needed some invasive species cleared and the person (and goats and dogs) who provided a happy solution.

Goat Busters!

When I read this email from a friend/client last week, I couldn’t wait to see the goats. I’d heard about Goat Busters in passing and read several stories about them from the HooK to the Newsplex to the Daily Progress, but had never encounter the goats in person.

Nina wrote –

“I got the goat busters onto our hill! After spending weeks pulling out vines because I do not want to use poisons, I joined my neighbor to get the goats. We pitched together and now are enjoying 60 goats grazing away on poison ivy, asian bitter-sweet and honeysuckle.

They have only been here for a day and a half and I can already actually see to the other side of the hill, which so far had been impossible.

A big attraction in this area is the natural beauty, Virginia is so rich in natural beauty, ginger ginseng, mayapples etc are all native to this area.

Various invasive species overpower them, and if we the inhabitants of this area do not prevent them they, the vines, do swallow everything up.

The goats are environmentally friendly, fun and it is a lot cheaper than man power!

These are some after shots, after 5 days of eating! I did not used to be able to see down the hill ( picture with the tree), or the meadow of my neighbor.”

Before –

All that eaten up in under a week, pretty awesome.

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One Reason Why Real Estate Closings Are Being Delayed

in Charlottesville General Real Estate on
Courtesy - http://www.flickr.com/photos/f-r-a-n-k/186745140/sizes/s/in/photostream/

“I had four closings last week, and three were delayed because of the banks.”

“I had three closings this week and they’re all screwed up because of the banks.”

“Our movers said that every single one of their moves was delayed because of the banks.”

These are just a few stories I’ve heard over the past month. Parts of the Charlottesville real estate market are picking up, but one aspect that is adding tremendous frustration to the process is the lending side of the equation.

There are a lot of variables that can affect a real estate closing, but there is one truism – don’t schedule your move for the day of, or the day after (and to be safe, wait at least two days) closing. In Charlottesville, you don’t get the keys until the transaction is recorded.

This is not personal; most of the lenders are really nice. The system right now could justifiably be construed as a disaster. The “system” being those people who touch the loans is a mess. From the lender to the processor to the underwriter to the closers, the system is screwy. So …

Be prepared. Be prepared to be patient, to answer more questions than ever before – from multiple years of tax returns to a copy of your college diploma – if the lenders ask for it, it’s not because they want to annoy you, it’s because that’s what the system tells them to do. If they ask for it three times – that’s a pretty clear indication that the system is broken; don’t fight it, just do it.

From The Perfect Loan File in Forbes: (read the whole thing)

It all comes down to your proof. If the lender asks for a specific document, give them exactly what they are asking for, not what “should be OK,” – because it won’t be. This is where the approval process tends to go off the rails, when the lender asks for specific documentation and the borrower supplies something else. Here, too, is where both sides get frustrated. So if the lender asks for a bank statement and there are 5 pages for that bank statement, send them all 5 pages, and not just the summary. If you send them the summary page and they ask again, don’t complain that the lender keeps asking for the same thing when you never sent it in the first place. This may sound elementary, but the vast majority of mortgage approval process woes stem from scenarios just like this.

Why are lenders being so much more redundantly, infuriatingly stringent? Because they need to be able to sell their loans on the secondary mortgage market (you know – Fannie and Freddie). Now that there is some risk associated with making loans, lenders are being overly cautious. Related: How to Explain the Mortgage Crisis to an 8th Grader.

Such is life. Knee-jerk reactions are human nature (see: HVCC). We’ll get through this, but for now, be prepared for frustration, and use a lender you trust; I greatly prefer local lenders (with one exception).

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People of Charlottesville

in Charlottesville Off-topic on

An interesting new Tumblr blog – The Cville People Project, a documentary photography project, was inspired by Humans of New York (http://www.humansofnewyork.com/ and http://humansofnewyork.tumblr.com/). I believe that we come to know a city through the people who live there, so my goal is to depict the city of Charlottesville through its inhabitants. I intend to make portraits of as many Charlottesvillians as possible and share…

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