Archive for the 'For Sellers' Category
A quick look at the market for condos and town homes in Charlottesville
August 18th, 2010 categories: Albemarle County, Charlottesville, Communities, Condo & Town home statistics, For Buyers, For Sellers, Market Statistics and Information
One segment of the Charlottesville area real estate market that has grown over time been the market for condos and town homes. 10 years ago, there were relatively few condos and town homes in the Charlottesville area. As the market grew overall, and demand increased, the inventory of condos and town homes grew with it. This is fueled by various apartment/condo conversion projects around the city and in Albemarle.
Now, the market for condos and town homes makes up a fairly large chunk of overall sales in the Charlottesville area. We thought it might be a good idea to take a closer look at this segment of the market, and see how things are going with condo and town home sales this year.
Charlottesville and Albemarle condo and town home sales stats
(All of these stats are through July and data comes from the Charlottesville Area Association of REALTORS MLS)
- There have been 319 condo/town home sales in 2010 compared to 332 in 2009 (-4%)
- Median price of sales in 2010 is $215,000 compared to $222,250 in 2009 (-3%)
- Condo/town homes sales are 34% of sales in 2010 compared to 37% in 2009
- As of August 18th, there are 338 condos/town homes listed in Charlottesville/Albemarle
- The average price of currently listed condos/town homes is $242,352 and the median price is $189,900
The condo and town home market in the Charlottesville area is clearly a large portion of the overall real estate market, and deserves to be watched. That means you can expect that we will be providing regular updates on the condo and town home market in the future.
If you have any questions about these statistics, or about buying or selling a condo or town home in the Charlottesville area, just let us know. We’re always happy to help!
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Charlottesville area real estate sales drop 50% in July
August 2nd, 2010 categories: Albemarle County, Charlottesville, Communities, First Time Buyers, Fluvanna County, For Buyers, For Sellers, Lake Monticello, Market Statistics and Information, Monthly Statistics, Recent Statistics
You might remember that much of the focus for our midyear market report, released last month, was the effect of the homebuyer tax credit on real estate sales in the Charlottesville area in 2010.
In the conclusion of that report, we said:
“Now that the credit is expiring, the effect of the tax credit has now been absorbed into the market. The July sales numbers will be critical, as that is traditionally a time of high sales numbers, at it is usually the peak of the Spring Market. Without the tax credit to spur demand, however, it remains to be seen how this will impact July sales.
If July sales are close to the 2009 numbers, that would be an encouraging sign that the market is stabilizing. If those numbers are drastically lower than 2009, then it would signal that the impact of the tax credit was even greater than we might have expected it to be.”
Well, now that July has come and gone, without a tax credit to bolster sales, it is time to take a look at just how the Charlottesville area real estate market fared.
July sales by area 2010 vs. 2009
AREA July 2010 Sales July 2009 Sales
Albemarle 84 171
Charlottesville 22 68
Fluvanna 20 22
Greene 8 20
Nelson 14 15
TOTAL 148 296
Impact of tax credit was enormous
The monthly sales stats paint a very clear picture– the effect of the tax credit on the Charlottesville area real estate market was ENORMOUS.
Here are some things that jump out at us, when we look at these numbers:
- Sales in the entire Charlottesville area dropped 50% in July
- Charlottesville was the loss leader– a whopping 68% fewer July sales
- Fluvanna saw only a small dip in sales, relative to the other areas.
Unfortunately, for people in Charlottesville and Albemarle, it looks like the expiration of the tax credit hit those markets the hardest. Fluvanna was able to tread water, which given the performance of the other areas, is something very positive.
What does the rest of 2010 hold?
It is obvious that the tax credit increased demand for homes significantly. Now that the credit is gone, we will see what the true market demand is. So far, signs are not encouraging.
Historically, July is the peak of the market and August begins the slowdown as we move into fall and winter. With the peak of the market basically chopped off with the expiration of the tax credit, most of the areas are going to be left hoping that the natural, existing demand will be enough to sustain the market and return at least flat sales numbers in August.
For reference, there were 216 sales in the Charlottesville area in the month of August 2009. In order to reach that mark again, demand in the area is going to have to do a dramatic turn around.
One thing is for sure, no matter what happens with the sales over the next month, you can count on us to provide you with the up-to-date, accurate, truthful stats and analysis that you need to better understand the market and make informed decisions.
If you have any questions about any of these stats, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment on this post, or contact us.
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Why selling your Charlottesville area home depends on proper pricing
July 29th, 2010 categories: For Sellers, Helpful Tips, News, Uncategorized
The number one, undisputed, reason that homes DON’T sell is incorrect pricing.
This has always been true in real estate. Sure, there are other factors that can affect the sale of your home, but the most important thing you can do to successfully sell your home is price it properly. If you get the price wrong, you’ll constantly be digging yourself out of a hole during the selling process.
The importance of proper pricing is something that applies to all homes, whether that home is in Charlottesville, Lake Monticello, San Francisco or New York.
Of course, you don’t have to take our word for it. USAToday posted and article today that highlights the importance of proper home pricing in the ultra-competitive real estate market that we are experiencing.
The most basic thing you need to understand before pricing your home
There are some nuances to properly pricing a home. There are comparable sales to be considered, location, home features, etc. All of this is moot, however, if you don’t understand one basic thing before you begin the process of pricing your home for sale. The article nails this point home:
“No matter what she [the homeowner] thinks her house is worth, what matters is what buyers are willing to pay.”
This is a point that cannot be overstated, but it is one of the hardest realities for homeowners to accept. The article goes on to talk about the emotional attachments that homeowners sometimes have that cloud their judgement and lead to setting a higher price than the market will bear.
Wishful thinking and hoping for a higher price will never sell a home. Home prices are grounded in market realities that cannot be wished away, no matter how harsh they may be.
The good news is that there are things you can do before you sell your home to make sure you are pricing it properly. . .
How to properly price your Charlottesville area home for sale
Properly pricing your home for sale isn’t rocket science. It does, however, require a careful look at the sales data that you have available, and then it takes a commitment to trusting that data and putting a price on the home that is dictated by the market, and not by your emotions.
The first thing you will need to do is gather the data. The easiest way to do this is to call a local real estate professional. That person can perform what is called a “Comparative Market Analysis” or CMA. We perform CMAs for all of our clients, prior to selling, and we also provide this service when people contact us when they are considering selling, but need to know the potential market value of their home.
The CMA is a comprehensive look at homes that are comparable to yours. The CMA will compare your home to homes like it that are currently on the market, currently under contract, and ones that have recently sold.
By looking at the comparable homes, ESPECIALLY the comparable homes that have recently sold, you will have a good idea of the price you can expect your home to fetch.
Another option is to contact an appraiser. An appraiser can perform an appraisal on your home. This is similar to a CMA, but it is a bit more exact. Appraisers use tested formulas to make more detailed comparisons of similar homes. An appraisal is what the bank will perform for the buyer of your house, to ensure that the home is worth the agreed upon contract price.
Besides the fact that a CMA can be done by a real estate professional, and an appraisal can only be done by a licensed appraisal, another major difference is cost. An appraisal will typically cost a few hundred dollars, while a CMA is free.
Trust in the market data
Once you have a CMA or an appraisal, the next big step is trusting the data that you have gathered. If the CMA or the appraisal suggests that your home will likely sell for $300,000, it would be a monumentally bad idea to price the home for $350,000, even though that is the price you really want to get.
If your ultimate goal is to sell the house, then don’t get in the way of your own goals by starting with an unrealistic price.
We see far too many homes languish on the market simply because sellers had unrealistic expectations as to the value of their home when they began the process. As a result, they priced the home too high, and have had a difficult time recovering.
The article describes how this happened to the homeowner that they interviewed:
“Listed at $539,000 when she put it on the market, the Excelsior Avenue house was missing one crucial thing: The right price. After a few weeks with no offers, she cut the price to $499,000 in May. Then she cut it to $475,000 in June. She is still hoping for an offer.”
This is an all-too frequent occurrence that is completely preventable. It can be prevented by simply gathering good market data, trusting that data, and pricing the home according to its market value– the amount that a potential buyer will be willing to pay.
Price your Charlottesville area home for success
Always remember that your home needs to be priced according to what the market says it is worth, not what you say it is worth. That means that you need to get the best market data and analysis that you can, and trust what that data is telling you.
The sooner you can accept these concepts, the faster you will be able to sell your home, and the happier you will be with you success.
If you have any questions about pricing your home, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re always happy to speak with people who are interested in properly pricing their homes, and we are happy to help you however we can.
Photo courtesy of Dale Chumbley via Flickr CC
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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.
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2010 Midyear real estate statistics for the Charlottesville Area
July 21st, 2010 categories: Albemarle County, Charlottesville, Communities, First Time Buyers, Fluvanna County, For Buyers, For Sellers, Lake Monticello, Market Statistics and Information, Quarterly Reports
- Sales increased 22% in the Charlottesville Area, and 29% in Fluvanna County
- The median home price in Lake Monticello for the 1st Quarter was $200,000
- An examination of the effect of the Homebuyer Tax Credit on sales numbers
To view the report, simply go here. You can also just scroll down and read the report right here in this post.
Feel free to download, print, or share the report with others. If you have any problems viewing the report please let us know, and we’ll send you a copy of the report, or we can even print one for you.
2010 Midyear Real Estate Market Report for Lake Monticello and Fluvanna County
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