Quick Inventory Thoughts – Charlottesville + Albemarle – March 2023

Watching the latest update from Altos, I thought I’d put the “fewer houses + steady buyers = weird market” into Charlottesville and Albemarle context.

Looking at resale (not new construction)

Charlottesville

• From 1 January to 5 March 2022* 98 homes were listed. Average price of $558K
• This year in that timeframe – 56 homes listed; average price of $425K. I ran this again; seems right.

Looking at contracts written

Same timelines and criteria as above

• From 1 January to 5 March 2022 – 89 contracts, $541K was the average price
• This year – 50 and $390K average price.

Albemarle County

• From 1 January to 5 March 2022* 223 homes were listed. Average price of $679K
• This year in that timeframe – 205 homes listed; average price of $555K.

Looking at contracts written

Same timelines and criteria as above

• From 1 January to 5 March 2022 – 192 contracts, $659K was the average price
• This year – 182 and $542K average price.

Quick thoughts – prices are fine; volume is not. We need more houses on the market, whether resale or new construction.

Why aren’t more people selling?

1 – Not enough is on the market for people to buy, either those moving to the Charlottesville area, or those seeking to sell and up or downsize within the area. For the latter point, see the next one:

2 – “99% of borrowers have a mortgage rate lower than the current market rate”

Questions? Please ask.

There’s a lot more I want and need to say, but wanted to post this quickly this morning. Why the asterisk above? I wrote this post on 7 March around 10am, but searched the Charlottesville MLS only up to 5 March 2023, as it sometimes takes 48 hours for humans to do data input.

I’m likely going an AMA on Charlottesville Reddit this week, too. That should be fun!