Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
Charlottesville Named one of America’s Best (and Healthiest) Neighborhoods by Men’s Journal
January 21st, 2010 categories: Albemarle County, Charlottesville, Communities, Fluvanna County, Fun Stuff, Lake Monticello, News, STR Market Info Blitz, Uncategorized
This post is part of the Strong Team REALTORS Market Info Blitz. We’re heating up the Winter market by giving you three-months worth of the information you need, November through January. Check out the latest posts in the blitz, here.
Life is good in the Charlottesville Area.
Buying real estate is always about more than just the square footage of a house, or whether or not is has a garage. We move into a house not only for the house itself, but for the area where that house is found. It is often the area around a house that helps turn it into a home.
Residents of the Charlottesville area know how valuable the area is to their quality of life. Sure, there are great houses in Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, and Lake Monticello, but it is often the quality of life in the Charlottesville area itself that attracts people to these properties.
Charlottesville is consistently recognized by national publications for its high quality of life. One of the latest publications to recognize Charlottesville is Men’s Jornal. Charlottesville was recognized in the June 2009 edition of Men’s Jornal as being one of the best neighborhoods in America. Charlottesville was once again recognized by Men’s Journal in the January edition as being one of America’s 5 Healthiest Towns, using statistics from BestPlaces.net
It is always good to see the Charlottesville area receive recognition for the things that really set it apart and make it a wonderful place to call home.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maong/ / CC BY 2.0
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10 Things to Know About the Charlottesville Area Real Estate Market in 2010
January 4th, 2010 categories: Albemarle County, Charlottesville, Communities, Financing, First Time Buyers, Fluvanna County, For Buyers, For Sellers, Helpful Tips, Info, Lake Monticello, News, STR Market Info Blitz, Uncategorized
This post is part of the Strong Team REALTORS Market Info Blitz. We’re heating up the Winter market by giving you three-months worth of the information you need, November through January. Check out the latest posts in the blitz, here.
10 Things to Know About the Charlottesville Area Real Estate Market in 2010
We recently came across a very interesting article published a few weeks ago by U.S. News & World Report that was all about the national real estate market. The article was called, “10 Things to Know About Real Estate in 2010.” The article is well done, and definitely worth reading.
We thought that the predictions in the article were spot-on. All 10 of them, in fact. We realized, however, that the article focused on the national real estate market. Since you aren’t buying or selling all over the country, but rather buying or selling real estate right here in the Charlottesville area, we though it might be a good idea to adapt the 10 things from the article to the Charlottesville areal real estate market.
In fact, the article itself mentioned the need for local real estate analysis:
“. . .anyone interested in buying real estate next year can’t just read the national headlines. Instead, find a good blog that covers the local housing market and consider speaking with a real estate agent with experience in the area. “
We’d like to think that we fit squarely into that category. 
So, let’s get started. . .
10 Things to Know About the Charlottesville area Real Estate Market in 2010
1. Prices to bottom: We think this will be true in the Charlottesville area. In a few days, we will be releasing our 2009 Real Estate Year-in-Review Market Report. The data in that report should give us a good idea as to how prices will react in 2010. Given the trends that we saw in the 4th quarter of the year, it appears that prices have stabilized. It is important to note that reaching a bottom is very different from climbing. While we expect prices to stabilize, we certainly don’t expect to see a tremendous appreciation of prices. As we’ve been saying for a long time now, the days of 10% appreciation per year are over for the foreseeable future.
2. Mortgage delinquencies up: This is unfortunate, by probably true. We expect to see more foreclosures and short sales in the market this year than we saw in 2009. The state of the economy is a major factor in the rise in delinquencies, as is the fact that many homeowners owe more than what the home is worth. Those two factors inevitably lead to a rise in delinquencies. That being said, the Charlottesville area has fared much better than many parts of the country. While their may be increased foreclosures and short sales here in 2010, it will be much less than other areas, even in our own region.
3. Foreclosures move upstream: This is a rather interesting prediction that is made in the article. Basically, economists are predicting that foreclosures will increase among “prime” borrowers, and homes in higher price ranges. Remember how everyone was saying that the chief cause behind the mortgage meltdown was the “subprime” borrowers? Well, many of those borrowers are already in foreclosure, or have been through foreclosure. There are a lot of “prime” borrowers out there who might now be in danger. Most economists think this is due in large part to the number of Adjustable Rate Mortgages that are set to have interest rate resets in 2010. It is difficult to predict whether or not this will be true in the Charlottesville area. It stands to reason, however, that if there a high number of ARMs in the area, we might see increased foreclosure numbers in higher price ranges.
4. Mortgage rates to rise: Since mortgage rates are not geographically dependent, any national prediction about mortgage rates will be just as true here in the Charlottesville area. Mortgage rates have remained at historic lows, thanks primarily to programs put in place by the Federal Reserve. As those programs expire throughout the course of the year. Expect rates to rise. Their is a very good chance that rates could be at or near 6% for 30-year mortgages by the end of 2010.
5. Buyer’s market remains: With prices at the bottom, and mortgage rates at historic lows, this is obviously a buyer’s market. That most certainly will continue throughout 2010. As previously mentioned, however, mortgage rates are sure to rise, and prices probably won’t continue to fall in the Charlottesville area. This means that the leverage buyers currently have will probably decrease as the year goes on. One factor that will play a big part in the market shift will be inventory. If inventory numbers remain high, buyers will have continued leverage just because they will have a greater selection, and more competition among sellers. If inventory numbers start to fall, that will erode that leverage more quickly. By the end of 2010, the market should still favor buyers, but things will be much more even than they are now.
6. Modification plan could be modified: The Federal loan modification program is a mess. It simply hasn’t done what it was intended to do– keep borrowers in their homes. The program doesn’t address two of the key factors that lead to loan delinquencies– negative equity, and job loss. While job loss hasn’t been as big a problem in the Charlottesville area as it has in other regions, negative equity is certainly a concern. Only a relative handful of people have been helped by the program. If the government really wants to do something, the program is going to have to be modified. If that does happen, it could stem the tide of foreclosures and delinquencies predicted by numbers 2 & 3.
7. FHA lending standards may increase: This one is pretty much guaranteed. Loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration have been very popular. Unfortunately, that popularity has meant that FHA loans have also been hit hard by foreclosures. This has lead the FHA to push for increased standards. Increase the standards might have the effect of eliminating potential buyers from the marketplace. While such an increase should help stabilize the market in the long-term, it could have a short-term chilling effect.
8. Tax credit available through June: We’ve talked about what extending and expanding the tax credit might mean for the Charlottesville area before. November certainly saw an increase in closings due to the originally proposed expiration date for the tax credit. It is difficult to determine if the extension and expansion will have the same effect of bringing more buyers into the marketplace. Overall, we feel that the impact made by extending and expanding the tax credit program will have only a slight positive effect on the Charlottesville area real estate market.
9. Markets will vary a great deal by region: This is true every time, all the time. It is true on a macro level, and also on a micro level right here in the Charlottesville area. The different localities have been effected differently by the market changes. Albemarle has been effective differently than real estate in Lake Monticello or Fluvanna. Even different neighborhoods have been effected differently. As the article suggests, it is extremely important to find an agent who is knowledgeable about the market conditions in the area and/or neighborhoods in which you are interested.
10. Mobile maps can help: This one was a bit of a stretch by the author of the article, but it is still applicable in the Charlottesville area. Both Trulia and Zillow have iPhone apps that will allow you to search for homes by your current location. It is a neat feature, to be sure. We have found that our clients appreciate the visual feedback that map-based searching can provide, which is why our Charlottesville area real estate search engine has a map-based element to it. Since all three of us are dedicated iPhone users, never hesitate to ask when you have questions about mobile real estate applications. Between the thee of us, we’ve tried just about all of them.
Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23727257@N00/ / CC BY 2.0
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The 2009 NAR Profile of Buyers and Sellers is full of important and interesting data
November 30th, 2009 categories: First Time Buyers, For Buyers, For Sellers, Info, News, STR Market Info Blitz, Uncategorized
This post is part of the Strong Team REALTORS Market Info Blitz. We’re heating up the Winter market by giving you three-months worth of the information you need, November through January. Check out the latest posts in the blitz, here.
The 2009 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers
Every year, the National Association of REALTORS surveys thousands of home buyers and sellers from all over the country. NAR collects data based on dozens of different criteria. NAR then takes all of the numbers, and crunches them into their annual Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.
The report contains over 100 pages of charts and information that put into perspective just who is buying and selling homes in the US, and how they are doing it.
Needless to say, the document is very important in that it gives us an idea of what buyers and sellers want, in a general sense, and what they are doing. We can then examine the data and determine how it is most useful to our customers and clients right here in the Charlottesville area.
Right now, we’re taking time to closely examine all of the data, charts and analysis so that we can share the with you the most important highlights of the report, and tell you what it means for you. In the coming days that’s exactly what we’ll be sharing.
So until we can address the report in more detail, here are some highlights from the home buyer and seller profile that you might find interesting:
Info about Home buyers
- 47% of recent home buyers were first-time buyers
- The typical first-time home buyer was 30 years-old. The typical repeat buyer was 48 years-old
- For 33% of recent home buyers, the primary reason for the recent home purchase was a desire to own a home
Info about Home Sellers
- Recent sellers fold for 95% of the listing price, and 60% reported reducing the price at least once
- 42% of sellers offered incentives to attract buyers, usually home warranty policies or closing costs
- 13% of home sellers reported they had a contract that was terminated, canceled, or fell-through
Info about the Home Search Process
- 94% of home buyers used the Internet to search for homes
- Only 2% of home buyers found the home they purchased in a print ad
- The typical home buyer searched for 12 weeks and viewed 12 homes
More to come. . .
Those are just some of the highlights of the report. We’ll have much more to come over the next few days/weeks. This is a report chock full of very important information, and we want to make sure that we share with you everything you’ll need.
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We’re Under Construction, so watch your head. . .
September 28th, 2009 categories: Uncategorized
Hello! If you’ve found our site, we just wanted to let you know that we still have a little finishing work to do. While we’re under construction, you can check out our listings at StrongTeamRealtors.com.
If you’d like to be notified when we are up and ready to go, just let us know. Thanks for stopping by, and we hope you’ll come back!
(Photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk, via Creative Commons)
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