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Determining Broadband Availability in the Charlottesville MSA

in Albemarle Charlottesville General Real Estate on January 16, 2012 January 8, 2019

For many of my clients, particularly those who work at home, internet is a more important service that water or electricity. The internet is mission- and life- critical for many people

A reader asks –

Hi, Jim: I’m amazed and annoyed that most listings do not mention internet service, nor do RE sites include that information as a search parameter. Knowing the availability – and speed – of internet connection is especially necessary when seeking a home outside Charlottesville. Short of investigating through local ISP’s for particular addresses or neighborhoods, do you have any suggestion? I do not trust sellers or, frankly, seller’s agents, to know or tell the truth.

In the Charlottesville area, the City of Charlottesville and the urban ring definitely* have broadband connectivity, as do many (most?) of the more densely-populated areas of Greene, Louisa, Louisa. * Definitely = 99% sure.

My suggestions and insight to ascertain broadband connectivity in the Charlottesville area:

1a – Ask your buyer broker. A good one is going to know with reasonable accuracy whether an area is likely to have internet service.

1b – If you’re really interested, the only way to ensure there is broadband service is to contact the service provider. In the Charlottesville MSA, we have Comcast, Embarq, Blue Ridge Internetworks, Verizon in some of the outlying areas, and a couple smaller fiber providers. *Nelson County just lost some broadband connectivity.

2 – A note to listing agents: when a buyer asks, “does this house have internet?” they aren’t asking about Wildblue or dial-up.

3 – I’ve asked the fine folks who power the “search for homes” feature of my site to add internet availability as a search option, but here’s the problem: GIGO. Just last year, the Charlottesville MLS added “internet availability” to the list of features listing agents can select, joining the ranks of # of bedrooms, # of bathrooms, acreage, etc.
But … As “internet availability” isn’t a required field in the MLS, it’s liable to be left out. And as we all know – if it’s blank, it’s not searchable. Thus, the search and results will be inaccurate, not useful, frustrating and bad for everyone – buyers searching, sellers trying to sell and agents running real estate blogs. 🙂

4 – To the trust aspect – get a good buyer broker who you can trust. I’ll address this aspect in more detail with clients. As clients said recently about the photos some realtors take to market their properties – “All pictures tell a story, and some aren’t true.”

5 – I wish that the internet service providers would offer maps and overlays to let people determine where service is, but presumably that information is a competitive thing for them.

Charlottesville MSA Real Estate Market Update – August 2011 – How This Matters to You

in Albemarle Charlottesville Fluvanna Greene Market statistics on August 30, 2011 August 30, 2011

Pending Contracts in the Charlottesville MSA are UP, year over year. But if you’re looking to buy a home in the Charlottesville area or if you’re trying to or thinking about selling, this number doesn’t matter to you one bit. What matters is – what is the market doing on my street? In my neighborhood? In my elementary school district? What happens at the top level – national, state, MSA, locality – is darn near irrelevant other than from a psychological point of view.

Here is why the top numbers don’t matter â€¦ there are extremes and outliers everywhere; today’s example:

A house just went under contract in the Bentivar neighborhood. A first look says that the house came on the market at $595k and went under contract in 6 days. If that house sells for $595k, the MLS data will show that it sold for 100% of its asking price. Which isn’t accurate.

The house first came on the market in February 2010 for $1,100,000.
Reduced to $835,000
Came back on the market at $833,000
Reduced to $735,000
Came on the market for $595,000
Went under contract quickly.

Look beyond the numbers presented to you. Here and everywhere. Good real estate professionals don’t try to hide the information, but it takes work to discover what’s actually happening.

Charlottesville MSA Median Prices 2000 through 2011

in Albemarle Charlottesville Greene Market statistics on June 14, 2011 June 15, 2011

Bear with me … I’m trying to make sense of the market.

Continuing my theme of looking at the Charlottesville real estate market data from a longer point of view, lest we track the housing market too closely …

It seems that we’re back (broadly) at 2004 – 2005 housing prices in Charlottesville.

Single family home median prices for Charlottesville MSA:

Attached home median prices for Charlottesville MSA:

I left off Greene and Louisa as they have negligible attached home inventories.

Charlottesville MSA – Single Family & Attached Homes Placed Under Contract – First Five Months

in Albemarle Charlottesville Market statistics on June 5, 2011 June 5, 2011

Note: if you have formatting issues, please let me know; I’m trying to embed the interactive charts, but have had issues with them in the past. They may go away without notice.

– Barry Ritholtz asks – How bad is housing?

– Case Shiller says:

– Consumer Reports says: Home prices have slid more than during the Great Depression

– The Wall Street Journal says: Why It’s Time to Buy

What does all of that mean if you’re trying to figure out what’s happening in the Charlottesville, Virginia real estate market?

Let’s look at the data*:

What I’m seeing:

– There is no consistency in the market, except for a few truisms.
– Things that shouldn’t sell do.
– Things that should sell don’t.
– Buyers are buying with minimum 5 to 7 year time frames in mind, and many are looking for 10 – 15 years.
– Buyers are being very selective, because they can be.
– Some buyers are looking for attached homes that have little to no maintenance; but … high HOA fees are deterring buyers. $200+/month is not a good thing (usually).

Truisms:

– Properties must be priced right in order to have a good chance of selling.
– Properties must be in as close to perfect condition in order to solicit the best offers from those seeking to (and many are) pay a fair value.
– Price + Condition = Good chance of selling.
– Sometimes the price is right, the condition is right, but the buyer just isn’t there. yet.
– Market capitulation isn’t quite here yet.
– Inconsistency rules.

Friday Chart – Charlottesville MSA Real Estate Update – First 47 Days

in Friday Market statistics on February 18, 2011 February 18, 2011

I'm always trying to get a handle on what's happening in the Charlottesville real estate market**, and while anecdotal evidence is useful, data is mighty helpful as well.

… Today we're looking for trends; as I've said for years, looking at data from any level other than this house (whatever that house is) can be misleading.

…key=0AsdZ2NoUfJTrdGRFQUxzbUJfYmNjc2FVbENkbnhsOVE&range=A1%3AM4&gid=8&transpose=1&headers=1&pub=1″,”options”:{“displayAnnotations”:true,”showTip”:true,”nonGeoMapColors”:[“#0000ff”,”#DC3912″,”#FF9900″,”#109618″,”#990099″,”#0099C6″,”#DD4477″,”#66AA00″,”#B82E2E”,”#316395″],”reverseCategories”:false,”titleY”:”Volume “,”dataMode”:”markers”,”maxAlternation”:1,”pointSize”:”0″,”colors”:[“#0000ff”,”#DC3912″,”#FF9900″,”#109618″,”#990099″,”#0099C6″,”#DD4477″,”#66AA00″,”#B82E2E”,”#316395″],”smoothLine”:false,”lineWidth”:”2″,”labelPosition”:”right”,”is3D”:false,”logScale”:false,”hasLabelsColumn”:true,”wmode”:”opaque”,”title”:”Single Family Homes in Charlottesville MSA – Listed, Contract, Sold”,”legend”:”bottom”,”allowCollapse”:true,”reverseAxis”:false,”isStacked”:true,”mapType”:”hybrid”,”width”:700,”height”:393},”refreshInterval”:5}

… Every time I see just how dead 2009 was, I'm a little surprised, and thankful to have made it through that time period.

Median Home Prices – Attached Homes for Charlottesville MSA

in Market statistics on January 12, 2011 January 13, 2011

Looking back at a decade of attached home sales in the Charlottesville MSA* – Albemarle, Charlottesville, Fluvanna, Greene and Nelson – seems that the peak Scanning through these numbers clearly demonstrates several things: – High-level analyses such as those found in the Case-Shiller reports are meaningful from one perspective – that of confidence and trends. – The respective peaks for various localities were in different. Albemarle may have peaked in 2006 while Charlottesville’s was 2007. – Transactional volume matters . Look at how easily Nelson’s numbers can be skewed. – For a real analysis of how much your home or the one you may be considering buying might be worth, you absolutely, positively need an analysis specific to your home, your neighborhood, your area.

… 2001 * There were no attached homes sold in Greene County via the Charlottesville MLS in 2001. 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 * There were no attached homes sold in Greene County via the Charlottesville MLS in 2001. 2008 2009 2010