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.
Browsing Category Market statistics
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.”
Homes are selling in Charlottesville!
It may not feel like it due to the significant amount of inventory currently on the market.Between 1 September 2006 and yesterday, 27 January 2007, 1188 properties were listed in the MLS (*975 of the properties listed in 06/07 were not condos and 958 listed in 05/06 were not condos).In that same time period in 2005-2006, 1260 properties were put on the market. Quite simply, homes are taking longer to sell; well-priced homes (priced well from Day 1) are selling. 340 properties were listed from 1/1/5-1/28/2005 and 193 went under contract.532 properties were listed from 1/1/6-1/28/2006 and 207 went under contract.441 properties were listed from 1/1/7-1/28/2007 and 116 went under contractMy fascination with numbers and data confounds me, as I was an English major and have always had an aversion to math…. translated to “How many properties come on the market in Charlottesville/Albemarle?**Doubly inspired to combat the perception that our market is dead in the water.
Charlottesville area listing inventory numbers
Without a way to determine whether these were changes upwards or down, this is honestly a bit of a shot in the dark; my very educated guess is that these price changes in 2007 were more down than up.Witness this new construction property in Crozet that came on the market last June – it started at one million three hundred forty nine thousand and was just reduced to $899,000!—NB: Contrast what follows with what was released in yesterday’s End of 2006 market report:One factor that affects the DOM statistic is inventory…. Including only our MSA (Albemarle, Charlottesville, Greene, Fluvanna and Nelson), there are as of 10 January 2006, 1672 properties actively on the market…. For example, there are 184 properties on the market in Madison and Orange Counties – at least 35-45 minutes north and north east of Charlottesville. There are 14 on the market in Rockbridge County (home of my alma mater) – at least an hour and fifteen minutes away (realistically 90 minutes).Less inventory is a good thing, at least in this transitional market.* Albemarle, Charlottesville, Greene, Fluvanna, Nelson* This post was inspired by Rob’s continuous tracking of his market.
Tracking the market too closely?
We won’t know how the market is doing today until we look back from a six- to nine-month removed perspective…. but to get an accurate understanding, we have to look in the rear-view mirror.Most of the analysis is cogent, articulate and informative, but…. Many contracts were written three, four, six months ago. In reality, when analyzing the housing market, one is analyzing the past and attempting to project the future…. Let’s take a breath, step back a bit, read the apocalyptical and rosy projections and determine that reality is probably somewhere in between.Related reading: The Big PictureSeeking AlphaCalculated RiskGranted, most of the analysis is cogent, articulate and informative, but.
Charlottesville Realtor and Marketing Stats
Continuing my ongoing and inconsistent series on the perceived “agent bubble” …Of the top-20 Realtors (based on # of transactions) in the Charlottesville market, only one is not involved with either condos or new construction. (#2 is “Non-MLS Agent)413 have had at least 5 sides.460 have had between 1 and 4 sides.About 350 have not had a single transaction so far this year.226 have more than 10 sides.Side: either a closed listing or a closed buyer-side transaction.In my opinion, selling at least ten sides a year should be the minimum when selecting one’s representation. Regarding marketing with photos:There are 1,979 Active properties on the market today as of 12/18/2006.*70 are flagged as having no photo…. 1524 are flagged as having more than one picture – a huge improvement over last year.Only 169 have a Virtual Tour.