Spotsylvania County Market Report – 7/8/10

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

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

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?

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:

Web: www.averyhess.com
Blog: www.averyhessblog.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AveryHess
Twitter: @Avery_Hess

Sterling, VA Market Report 6/8/10

The following represents the real estate market in Sterling, Virginia:

• Homes for sale: 470 (up from 460 last month and down from 507 one year ago.)
• Homes sold: 121 (up from 111 last month but pretty stable compared to one year when there were 123 sales)
• Average sold price: $328,097 (up from $318,038 last month and $286,037 one year ago. +14%)
• Average days on market: 23 ( down from 30 last month and very stable so far in 2010, down from 86 one year ago)

Here we are Post-Tax Credit. The predictions of Doom & Gloom seem not to have panned out. Folks are still buying and selling as they have for generations, without government subsidies. Today’s prices are still great values and affordability is at historic highs due to exceptionally low interest rates. Sterling has been an active market and the price increases and reduced selling time are proof of that.

It remains a fact that the market bottomed in December 2008. Buyers who have purchased since then have been rewarded with increasing equity from price increases as well as paying down a small part of their mortgage each month with every payment.

Commentary and analysis provided by David Hess, Executive Vice President.

Search for homes in Sterling, VA and the entire DC Metro: www.averyhess.com

Spotsylvania County Market Report – 6/4/10

Our crystall ball is officially in the shop getting worked on!  Today’s real estate market is constantly changing.  We used to have a pretty good idea what the next couple months were going to look like in any given year, but nowadays, that is simply not the case!

April of 2010 offered many promising statistics.  What will really be interesting to see is what happened in May when those stats finally arrive.  April was the last month for a Buyer to ratify a contract and qualify for the tax credit.  It was an extremely busy month and houses were selling left and right.  As soon as May arrived, everything slowed down considerably.  The very end of the month started to pick up again and as I write this, we are feeling like we are getting back to an even pace.  Here are the stats for April:

As you can see, inventory dropped dramatically!  New listings and pending sales saw a subastantial increase, while closed sales dropped.  This could be due to the amount of time many short sales are taking to close.  The average days on market decreased 40.4%!  While all of these statistics show that houses are selling quicker and Sellers are receiving higher offers, the very best statistic is the one showing the median sales price increased +9.5% in April!

Spotsylvania’s spring market is just what the doctor ordered!  Now is still a great time to buy with sales prices and interest rates being so low!  It’s also not a bad time to sell as days on market are steadily decreasing and Sellers are receiving much better offers.  We hope you all enjoy your summer and we will let you know when we get our crystal ball back!