2nd Quarter 2018 Charlottesville Area Market Report

tl;dr on the current state of the Charlottesville market

• Quite a few houses in select pockets of the market are moving quickly
  • Example: Since 1 January 2018, in Charlottesville + Albemarle, 1,296 not-new-construction homes went under contract (no way of telling how many of those contracts fell apart; a couple of those would have been mine).
  • 504 of those 1,296 had cumulative days on market of 7 days or under
    • 303 of those 504 were within 3 miles of Nest Realty in downtown Charlottesville.
  • 230 of those 1,296 were on the market for 90 days or more.
• Buyers want homes with hard-wired internet; there’s no good and reliable way for the public to search this.
• New construction is not going to solve the affordable housing crisis.
  • New single family homes aren’t going to substantively contribute to the solution; 183 single family homes went under contract (per MLS) since 1 January 2018. Average sold price was $580K.
  • 161 attached homes went under contract (per MLS) since 1 January 2018. Average sold price was $391K.
• The CAAR report for the City of Charlottesville notes that “Percent of List Price Received” was 99.6% — note that this does not account for homes that were listed for, say, $560K, didn’t sell, came off the market and was re-listed for $499K, and sold for $499K.
• If you are seriously evaluating the market, you need to analyze your micro market.

Looking Ahead

As I noted in the Daily Progress:

“We need more attached homes,” Duncan said. “I’d like to see more density from developers. Housing affordability has dropped a lot. More supply is one way to attack that.”

Moving forward, Duncan said the price pressure eventually might provide some relief.

“Prices have gone up so fast,” he said. “I think we’re going to see decreased buyer activity the next 18 months, slowing down the price increases.”

What I said in addition to a discussion about “the developers” was closer to, “I’d like to see more density from the developers and the localities.” Developers can’t develop with any semblance of affordability if the process takes 10 years.

Download the Charlottesville area real estate market reports

NB: These are for 2nd Quarter, not first half, of 2018

• Charlottesville City
• Albemarle County
• Greene County
• Louisa County
• Nelson County
• Charlottesville MSA