An accurate picture of 2010 Lake Monticello waterfront home sales
July 27th, 2010 categories: Communities, For Buyers, For Sellers, Lake Monticello, Market Statistics and Information, Waterfront Updates
We hope that you had a chance to take a look at our 2010 Midyear Market Report for Fluvanna and Lake Monticello last week.
As always, part of that report focused on waterfront home sales at Lake Monticello. We are always working with waterfront buyers and sellers, and it is a unique subset of the overall Lake Monticello real estate market.
One of the challenges when we provide the statistics for our market reports is the limitations of the data that our MLS provides. All of the data that we use for our market reports comes from the Charlottesville Area Association of REALTORS MLS, because it is the most comprehensive source of real estate sales data available to us.
Getting a more complete look at Lake Monticello home pricing
Although the MLS data comprehensive, it has computational limitations. One such limitation is the way in which it calculates the difference between the list price and the sales price of a property. When we ask the MLS for that statistic, the number that it gives us is a reflection of the percentage difference between the sales price of the home and the list price at the time the home went under contract.
This is usually just fine. Sometimes, however, we want to dive deeper into the stats and find out the relationship between the sales price of the home and the list price of the home when it first came on the market. This is valuable because it gives us a much more complete look at how accurately homes are being priced.
The only way to calculate this statistic is to manually look at the price changes for each individual sold property and compare the original list price to the final sold price. Obviously, this would be difficult to do for the entire Lake Monticello real estate market, but it is relatively easy to do for the subset of waterfront homes.
A more accurate look at Days on Market
Another statistic with limitations is the Days on Market (DOM). DOM is computed from the time a property is listed, until it goes under contract. The issue with this stat is that it is fairly easy to manipulate, since the MLS attaches the statistic to an MLS number, and not to a property address. That means that if a property is listed for 6 months, withdrawn for a week, re-listed, and then sells in 30 days, the DOM for the property will be 30 days, and not 210. Obviously, that isn’t what we want to see.
Again, the only way to get a truly accurate DOM is to manually search the history of each individual sold property. Once again, this would be difficult for all of Lake Monticello, but relatively easy for the waterfront market.
Accurate stats for the pricing and DOM of waterfront homes sold at Lake Monticello in 2010
We did all the hard work for you, and took a deeper look at the pricing data and true DOM for the waterfront homes that have sold at Lake Monticello in 2010. We went through each individual property’s pricing data and history, and this is what we found:
- There have been 8 sales of waterfront homes as of 6/30/2010
- The average true DOM for the 8 properties was 97 days
- The average difference between sales price and original list price was 8.75%
For comparison, the simple calculations that the MLS originally provided was a DOM of 43 days, and a sales price vs. list price difference of 5.7%
Clearly, there is a significant difference between what the MLS is reporting and reality. That is precisely why we wanted to provide these statistics. It is important to us that you have the most accurate real estate market information possible.
More to Come. . .
We’ll be doing more of these “deep dives” into the real estate sales statistics in the future. We know this is the type of information that is valuable, and we also know it is the type of information that is hard to find.
If you have a particular statistic that you would like us to find, please let us know.
If you have any questions about these stats, never hesitate to contact us. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all the happenings in the Lake Monticello waterfront market, we invite you to join our Lake Monticello Waterfront Email Club.
