Posts tagged Market statistics

Albemarle County Real Estate Market Update – August 2011

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What’s happening the Albemarle County real estate market? Lots of stuff. Perhaps the two most relevant posts I’ve written in the past few weeks are these:

– Goodbye, 0-5 Buyer -OR- Finance a House or an Education? in which I discuss the elimination of the short-term homeowner and this effect on the Charlottesville area real estate market

and

– Categorizing the Charlottesville Real Estate Market – in which I break the market down into four segments – from distressed to price aggressively.

This is just a reasonably high-level overview of the Albemarle real estate market. But … this matters little to you if you’re looking for a home in Albemarle, start your home search here. If you’re curious about what’s happening in your location in Albemarle, or are currently searching for homes for sale in Albemarle, please feel free to contact me anytime with questions.

Sold listings are down in Albemarle County year over year:

See also:

Charlottesville MSA Real Estate Market Update – 30 August 2011 – How this matters to You

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City of Charlottesville Real Estate Market Update – August 2011

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The City of Charlottesville Real Estate market continues to be slow. Download the City of Charlottesville Detailed Real Estate Market Report A balanced market is still a ways off.

As I noted in 2006 (Good Lord, it’s been that long that we’ve been searching for a bottom?!)

How do we know that the housing “bust/correction/adjustment” (how about “change”) is over? My answer – when we are able to look back from a perspective of nine to eighteen months and say, “see, here are the data, this is the trend of where we were, and here is where we are.” Until then, speculation about every move – a move of any kind -  of the market is just that – speculation, even if it’s educated speculation.

This is just a reasonably high-level overview of the City of Charlottesville’s real estate market. If you’re curious about what’s happening in your location in Charlottesville, or are currently searching for homes for sale in Greene, please feel free to contact me anytime with questions.

Sold listings are up ever so slightly in the City of Charlottesville year over year:

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Greene County Real Estate Market Update – August 30 2011

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What does this mean? It means simply that the Greene County real estate market – and Greene County itself – is becoming more self-sufficient and independent of Charlottesville-Albemarle (CharlAlbemarle). People are choosing to buy and live in Greene County and don’t have to commute into the City of Charlottesville or Albemarle to work. I’d *love* to see updated commuting data from the US Census.

This is just a reasonably high-level overview of the Greene County real estate market. If you’re curious about what’s happening in your location in Greene, or are currently searching for homes for sale in Greene, please feel free to contact me anytime with questions.

Sold listing volume is down just a bit in Greene County year over year:

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

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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 … 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.

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Goodbye, 0-5 Buyer -OR- Finance a House or an Education?

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We’re in the midst of a reset in the real estate market cycle. Every market is different, and we’ve been seeking “new normal” for quite some time.

Here’s part of the new normal, not just in the Charlottesville real estate market, but across society as well. (search for “new normal” on RealCentralVA for context)

The buyers who would buy and sell in a zero to five year timeframe are gone. In other words, the stepping stone of the “buying a home” lifecycle has been pushed further.

First time homebuyers, when they do choose to buy, are buying at later points of their lives – once they’ve established themselves in their careers* and found their mates if they so choose, and have determined that their lives – kids on the way, jobs … some sort of stability.

Many of these first-timers have either seen their friends and families decimated by the housing market or have experienced it themselves in selling or trying to sell – either normal transactions, short sales or foreclosures.

…

A report last fall indicated that student debt in America had reached $850 billion, nearly $25 billion more than the nation’s consumer credit card debt load.

Homeownership is a long-term decision. Given the choice – which are the next (current) generation of homebuyers going to choose –

Higher education or a home of their own?

The new normal, for the foreseeable future, is one without the 0-5 year buyers, one with an extended lifecycle of homeownership. And you know what? If we can just get the government to get the hell out of the way – stop making secret loans to banks, stop toying with being landlords, stop catering to the banks, stop trying to manipulate mortgages, and let the market work.

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Friday Chart – Good News – Charlottesville Housing Inventory Drops

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I know, it’s Thursday, but I’ve been playing with numbers all morning … What follows is a sample of market reports to come in the coming days, weeks and months.

– We still have too much inventory
– New listings coming on the market appear to be trending down; this is a good thing
– I love market data, and this new tool looks promising. I’ll figure out best ways to use it as quickly as possible.
– I still don’t trust some of the data in our reports; the data is only as good as the systems and the people; days on market and “sales price to original list price ratios” are still skewed for a variety of reasons.
– “Greater Charlottesville” = Albemarle, Charlottesville, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Nelson … look at these numbers for trending analysis only. Your market is local. Think about it … while a $200k two bedroom home in Belmont, a $750k home in Ivy and a new single family home in southern Greene are all included in these numbers … and all are affected differently by the market.

– What questions do you have?

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Categorizing the Charlottesville Real Estate Market

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The Charlottesville real estate market can be broken down into at least four categories.:

– 20% distressed

– 20-30% is overpriced

– 20-25% is stuff that no one wants to buy

– 20% is in great condition, priced really well and is selling in under 60 days. *

* “Right now” is Tuesday, 2 August. In the Charlottesville MSA, there are 2312 homes on the market, 482 properties are under contract. 266 have Days on Market of under 60 days. 257 have Continuous Days on Market of under 60 days.

Further, just because I was curious, 766 properties on the market have been on the market for under 60 days.

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