Recapping yesterday’s radio appearance discussing the Charlottesville Real Estate Market

My favorite two answers are “it depends” and “I don’t know” – they’re among the most honest responses I know. Providing a one-size-fits-all response to many if not most of the questions and subjects we discussed would be irresponsible and possibly dishonest. Hopefully the podcast will be up soon so that I can recapture the questions and discussions we had.

In short we spent about forty five minutes rambling about the state of the Charlottesville area real estate market and touched on the following topics (from memory) –

– Have green homes reached a tipping point?

– How are Charlottesville Realtors being affected by the market shift?

– “I overpaid two and a half years ago, and the house had a bunch of problems that were covered by the As-Is clause; do I have any recourse?

– “I’m relocating to the Charlottesville area – how do I do this?” – Candidly, not explicitly asking this person (Jennifer) to contact me was a bit challenging; I wanted to ask for the business but see my time on the radio as providing information and analysis, not selling/shilling my services.

– Inventory levels now versus last year and other years. I don’t like same-year month-to-month (May-June) comparisons, as they reflect current trends but do not provide historical perspective; for that reason, I provide Year-over-Year analyses.

– When is the real estate market going to turn?

– We touched on vacant homes.

– Those who use the assessed value to determine market value are looking at the absolute wrong data and are misguided.

– How do I help my clients assess whether now is the “right” time to buy or sell?

At least one story idea came of the show, and I might try to write a story about it in the next couple of weeks – what percentage of properties are on the market in the respective localities in the Central Virginia region? ie – in June of 2006 x% of homes in the region were on the market in Fluvanna, whereas in June of 2008, x% of homes are on the market there. I’ll try, but I won’t promise.

Also coming up this week, the first half of 2008 market report.