Avery-Hess, Realtors Blog » Real Estate

Germantown, MD Market Report – 7/20/10

Kristin Maynard — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:08:33 +0000

We have just over a four month supply of houses to choose from based on the rate of sales in June. (517 divided by 128). Economists say that a six month supply is normal to have a balanced market. After the tax credit I expect sales activity will fall for a few months since the market “borrowed sales from the future.” This is similar to what happened in the car business after “cash for Clunkers.” Below are the statistics and analysis for the Germantown, MD market:

Homes for sale: 517 (down just a smidge from 525 in May. Up from 491 one year ago)
Homes sold: 128 (up from 113 in May and up from 110 one year ago)
Average sales price: $281,345 (down from $291,860 in May 2010 and about the same $283,791 one year ago)
Average days on market: 40 (up a bit from 33 last month, but still way under 93 days a year ago)

The increase in the “Trade Up” market, where existing homeowners have equity and want to buy a more expensive house is beginning and will also pull process up as more higher priced sales pulls up all of the averages.
South Germantown Recreational Park is a 736-acre park that includes hiking trails, picnic facilities, baseball and softball fields, a playground, archery range, golf driving range, two miniature golf courses, a splash playground, model boating lake, a tot lot, and an indoor aquatic center. The Germantown Park is the newest to be added in Montgomery County, Maryland. The Maryland SoccerPlex is used by teams throughout the area and includes 24 outdoor soccer fields.

Market data and commentary provided by David Hess, Executive Vice President and Managing Broker.

Search for homes in Germantown, and all of the DC Metro: www.averyhess.com

Ashburn, VA Market Report – 7/19/10

Kristin Maynard — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:22:10 +0000

Supply and demand are both growing in Ashburn, reflecting a growing economy and increased consumer confidence. According to the statistics, we have a balanced market with just under a four month supply. The conventional wisdom is that a balanced market has a six month supply. So the current direction on prices is still indicating up.

Homes for sale: 511 (up from 497 in May and up from 433 one year ago)
Homes sold: 133 (about the same as May’s 131 and up from 123 in May 2009)
Average sold price: $441,119 (down a bit from last month at $451,953 and about the same as $440,838 in May one year ago)
Average days on market: 27 (the same as in May, but way down from 62 one year ago)

27 days on the market! A few years ago a 27 day average would have prices rising two percent or more per month. While fundamentals never change, there are times in every kind of market when things just get a bit out of whack. It happened in 2003-2006 when prices got bid to very high levels. While the statistics reflect a stable market, which is based on a comparison of month to month and one year ago, if we look back 18 months, we can see how far prices have come from their bottom in December 2008.

But c’mon, 27 days on the market?! When market times get that low and inventory is under four months, it is safe to forecast big price jumps. So that is my forecast.

Market report provided by David Hess, Executive Vice President, Avery-Hess, Realtors.

Search for Homes in Ashburn, VA: www.averyhess.com

Caroline County, VA Market Report – 7/16/10

Kristin Maynard — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:59:32 +0000

Boy are we living in interesting times! Our market has been all over the place this year! We started off the year with snowy weekends which then moved on to the February blizzard! We then experienced the frenzy of activity from Buyers qualifying for the tax credit. Then May 1st came around and the market came to a screeching halt. June was a welcome change and we started to have more of a normal activity level. Looking at the activity over the past year, things for the most part remain relatively unchanged. Here is a snapshot:

	June 09	June 10	Change
New listings	90	68	-24.40%
Closed sales	46	40	-13%
Pending sales	23	21	-8.70%
Median sales price	$148,450	$148,100	-0.20%
%of orig. list price received at sale	92.10%	92.80%	0.80%
Average days on market until sale	92	73	-20.90%
Single family detached inventory	253	253	0.00%
Townhouse – condo inventory	20	20	0.00%

The most noticeable change is the drop in new listings. Inventory has declined all across the Fredericksburg region. When inventory decreases so does the average days on market for homes that are listed on the MLS. We will need to see a continued reduction in inventory before our market starts evening out. While we still have a long road ahead of us, the decrease in inventory makes this market a little bit better for Sellers. Sellers that are priced right, show well and are in good locations are selling their houses for close to their list prices and quicker than in seasons past.

Market data and commentary by Amy Cherry Taylor, Business Manager and Realtor at Avery-Hess, Realtors.

Search for homes in Caroline, and the all of the DC Metro: www.averyhess.com

Gaithersburg, MD Market Report 7/14/10

Kristin Maynard — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:00:11 +0000

Talk about a See-Saw, the statistics for Gaithersburg could really confuse even a Real Estate Veteran. Fortunately, there is more to a market than statistics. So let’s jump into the stats first and then we will do some analysis. Below you’ll find statistics as well as analysis for Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Homes for sale: 878 (close to last month’s 867, but down from 902 in April and down from 939 one year ago)
Homes Sold: 214 (very close to May’s 214, April’s 211 and 207 sales one year ago)
Average sold price: $345,753 (down from $345,753 in May, similar to $330,231 in April and down from $363,547 one year ago)
Average days on market: 46 (close to 43 days in May, 48 in April and 102 days from one year ago)

Inventory is pretty stable to falling, number of sales per month is pretty stable and the time it takes to sell is falling. So is the market getting stronger or weaker? A year ago on average it was taking over 100 days to sell a house. In 2010 it takes just a little over a month. We are selling about the same number of units each month for the last year. So why the big swings in price? It is very much a function of the mix of what sells. If we sell more expensive homes it pulls the average up. If we sell a greater number of lower priced units it pulls the stats down.

The lower priced properties are selling like hot cakes. The trade up market while stronger than one year ago seems to ebb and flow and that affects the stats. The drop in days on market says that the demand is real as buyers choose faster and faster.

With summer comes fairs and carnivals and although Gaithersburg has developed into a large metropolitan area with upscale restaurants and stores, there is still a little bit of country as evidenced by the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair held at the fairgrounds in Gaithersburg every August. Live animals compete for prizes along with fruits, vegetables, homemade baked goods and crafts. Those along with the tractor pulls, the huge truck contests, musical entertainment, good food and the carnival rides draw huge crowds each year. This is an event you don’t want to miss!

Data, analysis, and commentary provided by David Hess, Executive Vice President.

Find your in Gaithersburg and all of Montgomery County: www.averyhess.com

Bristow, VA Market Report – 7/13/10

Kristin Maynard — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:45:00 +0000

Bristow still has just a five-month supply of homes for sale, and economists consider six-months worth of housing inventory a balanced market. This low level of inventory keeps pressure on prices in an upward direction. Bristow is so stable of a market that the wording in the market commentary written below has not changed much in the past six months.

Below you’ll find a report of the previous month’s housing market in Bristow, Virginia:

Homes for sale: 173 (up from 163 in May, 157 in April, but under the 192 of one year ago)
Homes sold: 36 (stable as compared to 34 one year ago)
Average sold price: $331,155 (compared to $326,198 in May, 331,155 in April, and way up from $313,655 from one year ago)
Average days on market: 28 (compared to 29 in May, 56 in April and down from 43 days one year ago)

Bristow’s prices bottomed out around December 2008, moved up steadily during 2009 and have stabilized in the first six months of 2010. At under $350,000 and selling in about a month, houses in Bristow continue to offer good value for buyers which is why the number of transactions have been so stable. Bristow remains an affordable and in-demand place to live. With interest rates remaining in the high 4% to low 5% range, affordability is very high. Thus Bristow has a robust real estate market.

Market data and commentary provided by David Hess, Executive Vice President and Managing Broker.

Search for homes in Bristow, and all of the DC Metro: www.averyhess.com

Rockville, Maryland Market Report – 7/9/10

Kristin Maynard — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:10:54 +0000

While the statistics show increasing strength in the market, which is correct, the rapid gain in price may be more a function of the “trade up market” than the numbers reveal. What is the Trade Up Market? This is when an existing homeowner sells their house and buys a more expensive property. The result is that there are more sales in the higher price ranges which has the effect of pulling up the averages. While this is good and is a sign of strength, when it first starts, as is now happening, it creates a statistical surge.  Market Statistics for Rockville, Maryland

# of Homes for Sale: 525 (down from 599 in May, 537 in April and down from 586 at the same time last year)
# of Homes Sold: 151 (up from 128 in May, 96 in April, and up from 111 at same time last year)
Average Home Price: $407,377 (up from $375,747 in May, $336,663 in April and up from $389,344 one year ago)
Average days on the market: 53 (up from 40 in May, but down from 62 in April, down from 92 one year ago). Continued reduction in time on market shows increasing demand.

The home buyer tax credits probably had the effect of shifting some demand forward, similar to what the “Cash for Clunkers” did to car sales. So I am expecting a bit of a reduced volume of transactions until September when we get back to “normal.”

A little about Rockville: Richard Montgomery High School is a premier magnet county high school which draws students from all over the county. Montgomery College, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland at Shady Grove all have campuses in Rockville.

Data, commentary and analysis provided by David Hess, Executive Vice President, Avery-Hess, Realtors

Find Your Home. Plan Your Life. www.averyhess.com

Spotsylvania County Market Report – 7/8/10

Kristin Maynard — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:46:04 +0000

It is amazing how much market activity can vary inside one county! Interestingly enough, inventory and days on market climbed slightly this week. Prices have been bouncing around the plateau we have reached and in only one part of the county have we seen a continued downward trend until now.

To show you the difference in median list prices (by zip-code), look at what occurred this week:

22553 – $315,495 (I bet that was much higher than most of you expected!)
22551 – $239,900
22408 – $237,100
22407 – $225,000

32% of properties throughout the county showed a price decrease. Days on market is on average 144 days.

Our market’s supply and demand is still leaning heavily towards a Buyers’ market. The market slowed considerably in May but started to even out again in June. We have been pretty consistent ever since. Overall, prices and inventory levels are relatively unchanged in recent weeks. I expect things to stay pretty consistent here in the upcoming summer weeks.

Commentary and market stats provided by Amy Cherry-Taylor, Business Manager, Stafford Regional Office.

Search for Home in Spotsylvania County: www.averyhess.com

Centreville, VA Market Report 6/22/10

Kristin Maynard — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:14:09 +0000

What happened to all of the dire warnings about shadow inventory and the growing supply of unsold homes? Certainly not in Centreville!

The following statistics reflect the real estate market in Centreville, Virginia:

Homes for sale: 378 (down from 435 last month, and down slightly from 394 at same time last year.)
Homes Sold: 126 (up from 110 in April 89 in March and February’s snowy 44 units. Up from 119 one year ago.)
Average sold price: $347,188 (another jump up from $337,492 last month and WAY UP from $274,000 at the same time last year.)
Average days on market: 21 (very stable over past four months, but down from 66 days one year ago)

As we have said month after month, prices in Centreville are moving up and have been for the past 18 months. The increased confidence has created a growing trade-up market and that is pushes the prices statistics up at a rapid rate. With today’s interest rates at or near all time lows, even with the rising prices, the average house payment is getting cheaper. So what’s not to like?

Market data, commentary and statistics provided by David Hess, Executive Vice President.

Search for homes in Centreville, and all of the DC Metro: www.averyhess.com

Leesburg, VA Market Report – 6/17/10

Kristin Maynard — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:20:19 +0000

After being overly stimulated by government interference into the real estate market via the various tax credits, the market is returning to a normal balance of supply and demand and normal negotiations between buyers and sellers.

The figures below reflect the Leesburg, Virginia market during the month of May 2010.

Homes for sale: 618 (down from 646 last month, and down from 643 one year ago)
Homes sold: 91 (down from the tax credit induced frenzy of 108 last month)
Average sold price: $417,479 (down just a smidge from $420,963 last month but still up from $385,551 same time last year.)
Average days on market: 59 (up from 55 last month and way down from 113 one year ago.)

Increasing consumer confidence combined with historically low interest rates have combined to help make it fun to trade up to a larger house again. Homeowners with equity are finding good demand for their homes and are happy with the supply of higher priced houses they have to choose from. Prices in Leesburg reflect this new healthy and stable market.

Market data and commentary provided by David Hess, Executive Vice President and Managing Broker.

Search for homes in Leesburg, and all of the DC Metro: www.averyhess.com

What’s your Content Strategy?

Amit Kulkarni — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:35:31 +0000

The sky darkens. Peals of social thunder reverberate throughout the countryside.

A storm approaches.

It makes landfall just before dawn. Cold, bitter winds drive the storm inland. Real Estate birds are driven from their perches, jarred by the approaching tempest. Taking flight, they twitter vociferously about anything, everything. Wave upon wave of fan pages crash upon the shore, unleashing their fury upon the berms of relevancy. The blogosphere is buffeted unrelentingly; unfiltered messaging rains down from the heavens, over-saturating the once fertile soils of digital possibility. Night turns to day. Day turns to night. The storm rages on, fury unchecked.

All hope seems to be lost.

Just as despair sets in, something twinkles in the distance. Upon the far horizon, a glint appears. The winds calm, the torrent slows. A shaft of light penetrates the gloom. The skies clear, casting illumination upon the landscape.

The view isn’t pretty.

What started out as an idyllic, focused outreach has been blasted into a mish-mash of abbreviated thoughts and useless information; unintelligible shards jettisoned carelessly into the social space.

The Reconstruction

Last week, I met with a couple agents to discuss their marketing strategy. I sat with them independently, and listened to their outreach efforts, communication vehicles and implementation plan. Their strategy, and uncertainty on implementing that strategy, were eerily similar. Both agents were thrust directly into the Social Media maelstrom armed only with the questionable rhetoric espoused by vendors and various Social Media Marketing “classes.”

In the case of both agents, there seemed to be a lack of a clear understanding on what exactly they wanted to accomplish, and how to accomplish this as of yet undefined objective.

The focus for both of these agents, and for many others in Real Estate, was to Twitter, Facebook, E-Mail and Blog unrelentingly, without any consideration towards messaging or intent. To create their own unfiltered Real Estate messaging tempest, close their eyes, and hope for the best.

We took a step away from the precipice, paused, and took a deep breath.

And then we crafted a strategy, a strategy based on content. Good content. Great content. Relevant content. Content that meant something to the recipient. Timely content. Content delivered appropriately on the correct messaging vehicle. We talked at length about balancing messaging in the social space with personal outreach and traditional marketing. We talked about the seamless integration of on-line and off-line messaging. We revisited the importance of personal outreach in Real Estate. We discussed how it is far more important to have a consistent, clear, relevant message with focused delivery as opposed to an inconsistent message delivered across numerous channels to people who don’t care.

Together, we were able to create a clearly defined, and focused, content strategy. A strategy that gathered up and coalesced the disjointed shards of information in the social space to create consistency. A strategy built to withstand even the most furious assault from the unrelenting Real Estate social media tempest.

-Amit

We’ve got a content strategy, and we can help you get one too:

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