Buyers, Sellers (and Realtors) would do well to take note of this chart depicting inventory numbers for residential properties in Charlottesville and Albemarle. The short analysis: Houses are taking much longer to sell and buyers are being more demanding and patient…. The number of sales, year over year comparison, is almost half that of 2006.*ignore the “months inventory” column for “current 2007” Taking condos out of the mix:All-inclusive – Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna and Greene:From the Wall Street Journal:Large inventories have caused prices to level off or fall modestly in much of the country over the past year or so. The recent surge in defaults on subprime mortgages — loans to people with blemished credit records — has prompted lenders to tighten credit standards.
Browsing Category Market statistics
Even more about Days on Market
While Days on Market does not draw a clear correlation to market value, it can help start the line and add insight into the Seller’s motivation.When I review active listings in a particular market, I look at the days on market before I consider finer property nuances like condition, layout, room count and so on. It provides clues to the upper limit to value, helping define the possible value range of a property whose value we are estimating…. (bolding his)Our MLS is in the process of developing/implementing a “continuous days on market” category to make tracking this data more accurate. Yet, we still have to depend on Realtors (the weakest link), who generally do not recognize the value the MLS data, to input correct information. Understanding the data is one thing; understanding its limitations is another.Side note: I wish our MLS provider would practice the transparency that this MLS provider does; the insights are invaluable.
Coming soon – Third quarter numbers for Charlottesville
Detailed analysis will be coming the first week of March. The numbers should be interesting.
Charlottesville MSA is number 50!
In the whole country (282 total)Today’s release of the OFHEO’s data is interesting.Regarding the Charlottesville MSA*: Housing prices rose in the past 12 month period 9.73%; 1.25% over the past quarter and a whopping 80.35% over the past 5 year period. The 5-year increase is higher than our 2 closest MSAs – Richmond and Harrisonburg.
In this market …
I find myself prefacing a lot of conversations with “in this market … “The real estate market in the Charlottesville area is vastly different than the one that many people in the real estate market are familiar with.*In this market:1) Buyers can negotiate – even with new construction2) Sellers have to work…. Homes are not selling themselves anymore.3) Days on market are being measured in months instead of days or hours.4) Realtors have to work. A lot.5) Good Realtors are in demand.I think ending a sentence with a preposition is acceptable in this case.
Days on Market penalties
One of the most important statistics offered via the MLS is the Days on Market – the number of days a particular property has been on the market is a good guide to the seller’s motivation, an indication as to whether they may be more willing to negotiate, etc. However, with every system comes those who try to “game” the system, by withdrawing a property and re-listing it, to make it appear as if a property is new, or “fresh” on the market. Any system with no form of punitive measure to deter this behavior is potentially worthless. From an agent in the Charlottesville area:I won’t mention names, but… I know one agent who changes the listing agent to another one of her partners and then relists the property so that it looks like she has been fired and a new one brought on. It doesn’t benefit anyone to have this kind of practice.Behavior and practices such as this damage the credibility of the MLS system and opens up more cracks in the MLS armor. For this reason, I was and am quite pleased that my secondary MLS, MRIS, just came out with the following announcement regarding fines:Sweet.
Sold comps now matter less
Now when pricing a home, we have to consider the sold comparable homes as a measure of the asking price, but we have to consider the active competition even more…. More and more when pricing home, we have to look at how many homes (because there are now more than one or two in each neighborhood) are actively on the market, for how long (because they tend to stay on longer than five or six days). After analyzing those aspects and running the house through several different price analyses, then we decide whether and by how much, we need to undercut the competition…. We will have a better feel for how much it has changed in March/April.Take heed – no longer can a home’s asking price be realistically set by the metric of “I have to clear X dollars.”