Analysis
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Buying under $200K in Harrisonburg may require you to buy an old or attached home |
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A bit more about affordable housing in the City of Harrisonburg, as we started to explore yesterday....  There are 149 residential properties for sale in Harrisonburg right now -- but if you're buying under $200K, and hoping for a single family (detached) home, it may be more difficult than you imagined. As shown above....
So, if you are looking to buy under $200K in Harrisonburg you may have to buy an old home or an attached home (duplex, condo, townhouse). | |
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Homes in Harrisonburg Under Half A Hundred Years Old |
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 If you haven't heard, it's becoming difficult to find bread in Harrisonburg this week. Something about a pending weather system.....maybe eating bread is a part of the snow dance ritual? Hard to say.... Beyond bread, though, the next hardest thing to find in Harrisonburg right now is a single family family home, built in the past 50 years, at "an affordable price" -- however one might define that....  As shown above, if you are looking for a single family home in the City of Harrisonburg, built since 1966, for less than $125K, you are out of luck. You'll start to find some options at $129K and then things go right on up from there. Check them out here. If you know about some secret locations to find detached homes under $125K in the City -- or bread for that matter -- let me know! | |
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More New Homes Selling, at Higher Prices |
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 As shown above, more new homes (54) sold in 2015 than in any year during the past five years. In fact, the 54 new home sales shown in the MLS in 2015 marked a 42% improvement over 2014. Furthermore, the median sales price has increased to $140/SF -- the highest level seen anytime in the previous six years! Of note -- the home sales shown above are only the new homes sold via the MLS. Plenty of other new homes have been built in recent years and sold directly by the builder (without ever being in the MLS) or were built via a contract build between land owner and home builder. Read more in my Harrisonburg Year End Real Estate Market Report....  | |
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My Predictions for the Harrisonburg Area Real Estate Market in 2016 |
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 Last year (2015) was a solid year for the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County residential real estate market, with a 3% increase in the pace of home sales. This level of home sales (1,022) was the highest number of home sales seen anytime in the previous seven years. I expect that we will see continued improvement in the number of home buyers purchasing homes in our local area in 2016. As shown to the right, I am predicting a 5% improvement in the pace of sales, for a total of 1,175 home sales in 2016. I believe we will see continued increases in local employment opportunities, combined with only small increases in mortgage interest rates, leading to continued increases in home buyer activity.  After three years (2012, 2013, 2014) of very small increases in the median sales price (+1%, +2%, +2%) we finally did see a more substantial increase in 2015. The 4% increase in the median sales price last year increased the median price to $185,000 -- the highest price seen since back in 2009. Over the next year, expect that we will see further improvements up to a median sales price of $192,500. If this indeed happens, this will be the third highest annual median sales price we have ever seen in this area. The highest median sales prices on record of $195,000 in 2008 and $195,100 in 2009 were both during the real estate boom. | |
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Home sales between $300K - $400K are running counter to the rest of the market |
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 Theories are welcome! As shown above, the under $200K market has been flat over the past year ,the $200K-$300K and $400K+ markets have increased by at least 30% over the past year -- but the $300K - $400K market has declined by 25%. One year ago, an average of 9.8 homes were selling in this price range ($300K-$400K) each month. That has declined (over the past year) to an average of 7.4 sales per month. | |
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The Single Family Home Market in 2015 |
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 The single family home market in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County told two two different stories last year (2015), depending on whether we were evaluating the price or pace of home sales. This past year (2015) marked the third year in a row with between 810 and 820 home sales -- so, virtually no change in the pace of home sales. Over the past year, however, the median sales price of single family homes increased by 5% to $200,000 -- which is the first time we have seen a $200K or higher median sales price since 2005-2009. It is encouraging that sales prices are increasing even without substantial increases in the number of home sales. Read more in my Harrisonburg Year End Real Estate Market Report.... | |
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The Townhouse Market in 2015 |
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 The graph above examines townhouse, duplex and condo sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. As you can see, there has been quite an uptick of activity over the past few years --- an increase from 179 sales/year in 2011 to 304 in 2015. In the past year, the number of annual sales has increased by 14%. Prices, however, have not increased over the past year. After an 11% increase in the median sales price in 2014, the median sales price did not budge in 2015 -- it stayed right at $151,750. Read more in my Harrisonburg Year End Real Estate Market Report.... | |
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Harrisonburg Year End Real Estate Market Report |
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 Learn more about this month's Featured Property: 6190 Dotts Lane I just published my monthly report on the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market. Jump to the full online market report, or download the PDF, or read on for highlights....  A year-end look at the numbers is always fun -- we finally have all of the numbers in and now we know the following about 2015 when looking at the residential real estate market in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County....
But wait! Before we mash all of the data together and call everything wonderful, here is something interesting....  As shown above....
Here is a colorful and fun and uplifting graph....  Just another visual indication (above) of the improvements we have seen in our local real estate market over the past few years. The most notable jump in the pace of sales was between 2012 and 2013 -- but we finally broke into the 1100's this past year. Buyer Activity....  As shown above, contracts picked up a bit in December 2015 -- to 67 contracts as compared to only 63 last December. However -- the annual pace of buyers signing contracts declined slightly, from 1192 to 1172. Of note -- despite fewer contracts in 2015 -- there were more sales -- which is an indication that more contracts are successfully making it through to closing. More and Much, Much More.... There is more, oh so much more, in my full year-end real estate market report. I have even made it very easily accessible for you to read online.... And as is always my encouragement -- if you will be buying or selling a home in the near future, become a student of the housing market! Learn what has been happening recently, what is happening now, and what is likely to happen next. Being informed will allow you to make better real estate decisions. If you are ready to buy or sell a property in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County, contact me at 540-578-0102 or scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com to get the process started. | |
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Inventory levels are quite low, but it is quite normal |
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 Inventory levels are quite low right now -- there are only 553 homes for sale -- but this is quite normal for this time of year. Several of my clients have recently commented on the very low number of new listings they have seen in the past month. Hopefully we'll see some soon, though last year inventory levels stayed quite low from January through March. | |
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Fact Checking My 2015 Predictions |
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So.......back on January 12 of this year, I made some predictions......  As shown above, I was predicting....
Well, let's see how I did. Looking at all of the data in the system thus far (a few more 2015 sales will likely be reported in the next week) this is what I'm finding....
It turns out I was a bit conservative on the increase in home sales, but pretty darn close on the increase in sales price. Stay tuned for my 2016 predictions coming in January. | |
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Fewer and fewer and fewer foreclosures |
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 There have been fewer and fewer and fewer foreclosures of properties in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County in recent years. We're still not back to the sub-100 level of 2000-2007, but we're a lot better off than we were when we were seeing over 200 foreclosures per year. The data point for 2015 shown above (128 trustee sales) only includes Jan 1 - Nov 30 data. | |
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After a weird dip last year, land is back to selling for around $14K per acre |
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 I'll take a look at how these prices per acre vary within different acreage ranges soon -- but for now, know that all 1+ acre lots that are selling in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County are selling at a median of $14,025 per acre. Last year's median of $9,932 was an odd departure from the previous several years. | |
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Homes Sales Increasing, Except Between $300K and $400K |
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 The pace of home sales is increasing in every price range except $300K - $400K. There are only an average of 7.8 homes selling per month in the $300K - $400K price range, as compared to an average of 9.8 sales per month a year ago. This might seem like a small numerical change, but it amounts to a 21% decline in the pace of sales, and is in stark contrast to the increases seen in all of the other price ranges. | |
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We are approaching a balance between buyers and sellers in our local market. |
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 Most housing market analysts consider six months of inventory (active listings) to be an indicator of a balanced market (between buyers and sellers). The "BUYERS" trend line above is illustrating how many buyers are buying in a six month period. The "SELLERS" trend line above is illustrating how many sellers are in the market (active listings) at any given time. As you can see, our market had an extreme imbalance several years ago, with more sellers in the market than were needed based on the buyers in the market. Over the past four years we have been seeing a steady increase in buyers in the market and a decline in sellers in the market. Find out more about our local market at HarrisonburgHousingMarket.com. | |
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December 2015 Harrisonburg Housing Market Report |
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 Learn more about this month's Featured Property: 6600 Lawyer Road I just published my monthly report on the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market. Jump to the full online market report, or download the PDF, or read on for highlights....  There is plenty to be excited about in this month's report on our local housing market....
 Home sales are piling up in 2015 -- as shown above, the 1,039 home sales we have seen between January and November this year is well above the number of home sales seen anytime in the previous five years.  The pace at which buyers are signing contracts to buy real estate is often an excellent indicator of the future sales performance of our local market. Curiously, we are seeing fewer people signing contracts in the most recent 12 months (1,168) as compared to the previous 12 months (1,186). Since closed sales are increasing, this likely means that more contracts are making it successfully to closing.  Inventory levels are both up, and down. There are actually 2% more homes on the market now as compared to a year ago -- however, inventory levels have dropped by 6% over the past six months, as is typical for this time of year. OK, that's it for now. You can read further commentary in coming days on my blog, HarrisonburgHousingToday.com, or dive right into the full market report, which you can read online or download as a PDF. And as is always my encouragement -- if you will be buying or selling a home in the near future, become a student of the housing market! Learn what has been happening recently, what is happening now, and what is likely to happen next. Being informed will allow you to make better real estate decisions. If you are ready to buy or sell a property in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County, contact me at 540-578-0102 or scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com to get the process started. | |
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Should your house be on the market over the holidays? |
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 31 sellers in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County would say YES! Many homeowners took their house off the market over the holidays, some of whom will wait until the first Monday of January to re-list, and some of whom will wait until Spring to put them back on the market. And why not? There couldn't be too many people buying homes over the Christmas holiday, right? Looking back at this past holiday season, if you took your house off the market 10 days before Christmas (Dec 15) and waited until the first Monday after the New Year to put it back on the market.... You would have missed out on 31 buyers who signed contracts to buy homes between those dates. | |
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Contracts Slightly Slower in Sept, Nov |
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 There have been 241 contracts signed in the past three months (Sept, Oct, Nov) -- as compared to 248 contracts during the same months last year. With that small of a decline (-3%), we'll say that buyers are buying at "about the same pace" as last year. While I'd always like to see 3% - 5% year-over-year growth in the pace and price of sales, it is unlikely that we'll always see those steady increases. Thankfully, looking at a wider time frame, sales are up 5% year-over-year in 2015 through the end of October. More stats to come soon. | |
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86 out of 100 buyers are buying for less than $300K |
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 Looking at home sales in the past year we find that....
Clearly, that also means that only 6% of our local market is comprised of home sales over $400K. All of this points towards our YTD median sales price of $186K. | |
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What is the worst month to sell your home? |
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 Sorry for the bad news -- but it seems that December is the worst month to sell your home -- as the lowest percentage of active listings are likely to go under contract in December as compared to any other month of the year. The graph above examines what percentage of active listings have gone under contract in each of the past12 months -- thus, accounting for both fluctuation in buyer activity as well as fluctuation in inventory levels. | |
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Showings strong in October after many slow months |
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 Looking at the graph above, you might not guess that home sales are up 5% year-over-year. But they are. Showings, however, as shown above, have been quite slow in many recent months. There were fewer showings in May, June, July, August and September as compared to the same month the previous year - yet despite this, home sales increased. October was a breath of fresh air, as showings increased dramatically (+60%) as compared to last year. | |
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Scott Rogers
Funkhouser Real
Estate Group
540-578-0102
scott@funkhousergroup.com
Licensed in the
Commonwealth of Virginia
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