Nearly Mid-2009 Market Report for Charlottesville and Albemarle real estate market

Housing Inventory for Charlottesville real estate market

As always, if you have any questions or would like more information, please leave a comment or contact me.

Looking back at the First Quarter Market report:

And the surrounding regions …

2411. The number of properties currently on the market right now.

317. The number of properties that have sold through the MLS in Central Virginia.

36. The number of these properties that are marked as having been foreclosures.

529. The number of properties that went under contract in the first quarter.

The first quarter is over; thank goodness.

And today*:

2707. The number of properties on the market right now.

737. The number of properties that have sold so far this year.

72. The number of properties sold so far this year market as foreclosures.

1198. The number of properties that have gone under contract so far this year.

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First things first – temporarily, I am ignoring aggregate days on market numbers. I do not trust them, and will go into more detail in a future post. Suffice it to say, there are enough outliers and inaccuracies to force me to say publicly that the numbers are not accurate. The only way to get a true representation of days on market in the Charlottesville area is to run the numbers individually, say, for a market analysis.

Here is a quick example why I do not trust the days on market numbers:

Of the 204 properties that have "contract dates" of at least 1 April 2009, 55 have Days on Market number of zero. Think that might skew the aggregate numbers? About 99% of these 55 "outliers" are new construction …  all that being said, we can gain insight by running numbers manually.

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Looking at the numbers a bit differently,

556 properties in the Charlottesville MLS (that were not marked as being new construction) went under contract since April 1 2009.

148 – about 27%  – have continuous days on market of less than 30 days.

231 – about 42% – have CDOM of less than 60 days

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Anecdotally – properties are selling. Buyers are buying, sellers are selling.  Some properties are selling in three, five and ten days … some even with multiple offers.

The $8,000 tax credit (h/t TPREG)is absolutely on the minds of first-time homebuyers. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s free "money" from the government! (and no, I’m not seeing sellers price their homes $8k more because of the credit – most sellers just want to sell and aren’t concerned with capturing that $8k.  Some sellers are holding off because they cannot get the prices they need because they are under water – either principle or principle plus the HELOC – and some because they are getting good advice.

Buyers are noticing that well-priced properties are selling. When houses reach a certain price point, they will sell. Try it yourself – search for homes for sale in Charlottesville or Albemarle by price reduction and you will see that things are moving.

But … some buyers are holding off because they aren’t going to be here for more than at least three to five years, they are concerned about the possible (and likely) continued decline in housing prices,

Interest rates have been rising, but they are not "high" by historical standards. Dan Green thinks that "rates will decrease over the next 30 days." (thanks for the chart, Wolfram Alpha)

Wolfram Alpha historical interest rates

Please do not pay attention to the "average DOM" or the "% diff list/sell" – they just aren’t accurate. Neither take into account properties that have been listed and re-listed (and sometime re-re-listed). Frequently the actual days on market and differential between original list price and ultimate selling price are wildly disparate.

Housing Inventory for Charlottesville real estate market - 2006

Housing Inventory for Charlottesville real estate market - 2007

Housing Inventory for Charlottesville real estate market - 2008

Housing Inventory for Charlottesville real estate market 2009

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A quick agent update: By this time in:

2005 – 81 agents had more than 10 sides and 238 had more than 5

2006 – 71 agents had more than 10 sides and 218 had more than 5

2007 – 52 agents had more than 10 sides and 181 had more than 5

2008 – 33 agents had more than 10 sides and 138 had more than 5

2009 – 24 agents had more than 10 sides and 84 had more than 5

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Update 17 June 2009:

At Buyer’s request in the comments:

Median price for sold homes in charlottesville albemarle - single family

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Price range statistics report.

More about Days on Market and Inventory levels.

*Right now is Sunday night, 14 June 2009

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Caveats:

1 – Central Virginia, for the purposes of this report, is Charlottesville, Albemarle, Greene, Fluvanna, Louisa and Nelson

2 – This is a smaller number – likely significantly smaller – than the actual number of foreclosures in our market.

3 – There is no reliable way to determine the number of short sales in our market, as there is not yet a consistent and reliable method to track foreclosures.

4 – I’m sorry for the brevity of this post; I’m still working on a few things to make my reports deeper and more robust.

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Title
Sold Median prices in Charlottesville and Albemarle

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8 Comments

  1. Buyer June 17, 2009 at 12:04

    How many detached houses sold in Cville and in Albemarle in May?
    What were the median prices for these?
    Thanks.

    Reply
  2. Jim Duncan June 17, 2009 at 13:27

    Buyer –

    Answer coming soon …

    Reply
  3. Jim Duncan June 17, 2009 at 14:41

    Posted the median prices for single family detached homes in Albemarle and Charlottesville. Clearly I am having some issues with the image formatting, but the information’s there. 🙂

    Reply
  4. Debaser June 17, 2009 at 16:11

    Hi Jim,

    The YTD values for Median Price and DOM that you added for single family detached homes don’t make sense, I am going to guess they are cumulative values and need to be divided by the 5 months of data they represent?

    The median sale price in Charlottesville for both 2008 and 2009 is also confusing me. 211k sounds very low, esp. for just detached houses – currently that is 800 sq. ft “charming Belmont cottage” range. The CAAR 2009 1st quarter Market Report lists Charlottesville median price at 262k and I think that includes attached properties.

    Am I missing something?

    Reply
  5. Jim Duncan June 17, 2009 at 16:58

    Debaser –

    Thank you for the comment. Try this document – don’t pay so much attention to the days on market. I believe the aggregate Days on Market to be crap and easily manipulated.

    Reply
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