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Year End Recap Shows 12% Increase In Home Sales, 5% Higher Sales Prices In Harrisonburg, Rockingham County |
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 Happy New Year, friends! The high temperature actually made it up to 40 degrees today, a slight reprieve from the frigid temperatures over the past week. I think we've had more snow this January (eight inches or so) than we've had for the past few winters... and the super low temperatures are causing it to stick around much longer than it usually does in the Shenandoah Valley. I hope by now you are mostly shoveled out and that you are enjoying the snowy winter scenes that seem likely to stick around for another week or so! I have good news to report... I closed out 2024 much more safely than I started the year. :-) December 31, 2023 - Ran in the VA Momentum NYE Glow Run 5K, slipped, fell, sprained my ankle and hobbled my way through most of January. December 31, 2024 - Ran in the VA Momentum NYE Glow Run 5K, stayed on my feet and sustained no injuries, despite a very rainy finish.  Two takeaways here... [1] If your 2024 had a rough start, I hope you also had a strong and happy close to your year. [2] VA Momentum puts on some super fun running events -- energizing communities for good -- I hope to see you at one in 2025! Now, then, if you're looking for a fun dinner spot for later this month, consider checking out Rocktown Kitchen, a farm-to-table restaurant on Liberty Street in Harrisonburg, just across from the Farmer's Market. I'm giving away a $50 gift card to Rocktown Kitchen this month to one of you readers of my monthly market report - so click here to enter to win the gift card. And now, on to the real estate data... with a note to you, the reader, before we start... We just closed out 2024, so I'm looking back at a full year of data, and thus there will be a few more charts, and a few more graphs in this report than usual. Read through it all in detail, or scroll and skim, or ignore it all and just email or text me (540-578-0102) to set up a time for me to explain it all to you in person over coffee or breakfast. ;-) First up, the overall residential sales market in 2024...  The chart above outlines sales trends over multiple different timeframes, but the one I'm focusing on today is highlighted and shows the entirety of 2024. There were 12% more home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County in 2024 than in 2023. The median sales price of all homes selling in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County increased by 5% in 2024... to $345,095. Of all of the home sales in 2024:
Here's what's happening in the detached home segment of our local market...  Interestingly... [1] Compared to the 12% increase in all home sales, we have only seen a 6% increase in detached home sales. This means that more of the recovery (12% increase) in the quantity of homes selling was in attached homes. [2] While the market-wide median sales price only increased 5% in 2024... the median sales price of detached homes increased by... 11%. The median sales price of detached homes selling in 2024 was $388,000. So, about those attached home sales...  While we only saw a 6% increase in the number of detached homes that sold in 2024... we saw a 24% increase in attached home sales! That's a lot more townhouse, duplex and condo sales in 2024! But... despite that increase in the number of attached homes that are selling, the median sales price of those attached homes only increased by 2% over the past year... to $306,000. Having sliced and diced sales by property type, let's do so by location as well, starting with the City of Harrisonburg...  As shown above, fewer homes sold in 2024 than 2023 in the City of Harrisonburg. Over the past three years we have seen the number of City home sales decline from 425 to 296 to 283. A significant part of the decline in City home sales is because there is very few new homes are being built to be purchased in the City of Harrisonburg. The number of opportunities to buy a home in the City is almost entirely depend on resale home sales. Meanwhile, in Rockingham County, we are seeing a steady supply of new homes being built, and thus the following chart probably won't surprise you...  Rockingham County has seen 17% more home sales this year than last year. With new construction continuing in multiple neighborhoods in the county, we are likely to continue to see strong home sales in the county over the next few years. Speaking of new home sales... here's a variety of news on that front...  New home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County (mostly Rockingham County) increased 29% in 2024. That said, the number of new home sales in 2024 was actually slightly lower than in 2022. The median sales price of new homes in 2024 was only 1% higher than in 2023... though both years showed a median sales price about 12% higher than in 2022. Given that more and more people want to make Harrisonburg and Rockingham County their home, and given that current mortgage interest rates are keeping lots of existing homeowners from selling their homes, the construction of new homes is an important part of allowing our community to continue to grow. Here are some more details on why we need those new homes if we want buyers to have homes to buy...  Existing home sales increased 6% in 2024... but the 961 existing home sales in 2024 is still 18% lower than in 2022. We saw somewhat of an increase in existing homeowners being willing to sell, but not enough to keep up with buyer demand. Now, on to some graphs to help better understand a few more trends...  A few notes on the lines on the graph above... red = sales per month in 2024 blue = sales per month in 2023 grey = sales per month, on average, between 2020 and 2023 Since May 2024, most 2024 monthly sales counts were above the same month in 2023 with two exceptions... October 2024 sales were slightly below (-1) October 2023. November 2024 sales were drastically higher (+59) than November 2023. December, then, ended about where we'd expect it -- with 89 home sales, compared to 85 last year. Looking ahead, we are likely to see between 75 and 100 home sales per month for the next two months before we get into the busier sales season starting in March. Switching back to viewing the year as a whole, 2024 beat 2023, but lost to the three years before that...  In total, 2024 came in 4th out of 5 spots when looking at the total number of home sales per year for each of the past five years. So, home sales are on the rise again, but just compared to a particularly slow 2023. Speaking of particularly slow... a year(ish) ago is when things slowed most significantly...  Annual home sales steadily declined from 1,728 sales in mid-2022 down to 1,206 sales in December 2023. That was the lowest annual sales we have seen in the past five plus years... and the pace of annual sales has been rising again ever since. But... while we have seen an increase in the number of homes that are selling over the past year... we are seeing a slowing in rate at which the median sales price of those homes is increasing. That was a lot of words to say that after several years of median sales prices increasing by 10% per year, in 2024 the median sales price only increased by 5%. OK. Still a lot of words. Stretching a bit further back in time, we can create a bit more context...  A few things to note related to the 1,347 home sales seen in 2024 in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County... [1] The three years in the past decade when we have seen more sales in a year were ones where home sales activity was fueled on by a COVID-induced home buying spree (more people working from home) and historically low mortgage interest rates. [2] We are now (in 2024) back to the number of home sales we were seeing in a year pre-Covid. I expect we will see the number of home sales continue to increase in our area in 2025. Also shown above, the median sales price increased by 10% - 11% for four years in a row: 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. We have now seen a smaller increase (+5%) in the median sales price in 2024 and I expect a similar (5% or less) increase in 2025. Shifting gears a bit, to contract activity, the last two months of 2024 were as slow as you might have expected they would be...  The 91 contracts signed in November 2024 and the 85 signed in December 2024 were about what I expected we would see in the final two months of the year. These tend to be slower months of the year for contract activity -- compared to 120 to 140 contracts being signed in some spring and summer months. Inventory levels are also quite low, as you might expect at this time of year...  Since July 2024, inventory levels have been falling in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, particularly compared to a year ago. That is to say that there are fewer homes available to a buyer at any given time now compared to a year ago. There are 138 homes currently on the market in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County... compared to 185 a year ago at this time. Finally, let's look at mortgage interest rates...  Everything is new. Everything is still the same. Mortgage interest rose in 2024. They fell. They rose again. The average (30 year fixed) mortgage interest rate closed out 2024 at 6.85%... a smidge above the 6.61% level where it was a year prior... which was another smidge above the 6.42% from a year before that. While it would be wonderful to think we would see mortgage interest rates close to 6%, or a bit below that, in 2025 - I think it is more likely that mortgage interest rates will stay between 6.5% and 7% in the coming year. Phew! You made it to the end. :-) One of the reasons I compile all of this data each month is because I educate myself through the process of researching, analyzing and writing this report. This, then, provides me with a good sense of overall market trends to help me advise home buyers and sellers as they buy and sell houses in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. If you want to move beyond the basics of these broad trends, I'm happy to chat with you directly. These are the most frequent reasons why I'm hearing from someone like you after I send out this report... 1. I plan to sell my house in the next few months and want to better understand the market in my neighborhood and price range. 2. I hope to buy a home in the next few months and want to better understand the process and the market for what I'm looking to buy. 3. I would like to buy a new (to me) home - but would need to sell my house in order to do so. What does this look like and can this even work in the current market? You might have these questions, or any number of other questions, related to thinking about buying a house, selling your house, or real estate in general. Feel free to reach out if I can be of help to you as you explore these topics in 2025. You can contact me most easily by phone/text at 540-578-0102 or by email here. I'll send you another update on the local housing market in February. I assume by then the current snow on the ground will have melted... maybe? Stay warm! Recent Articles:
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Scott Rogers
Funkhouser Real
Estate Group
540-578-0102
scott@funkhousergroup.com
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