Analysis
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Home values going up despite sales prices going down? |
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 Tracking median sales prices can sometimes be deceiving....
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Buyers are finding more single family homes for sale, but significantly fewer townhouses, duplexes and condos |
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 Buyers are finding significantly more (+13%) single family homes to choose from these days (as compared to a year ago) but significantly fewer (-18%) townhouses, duplexes and condos. | |
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Local Housing Market Heats Up in June 2014 |
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 Featured Property: 7894 McGaheysville Road, Penn Laird, VA I just published my monthly report on the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market and the local housing market started heating up in June 2014. Jump to the full online market report, download the PDF, or read on for highlights....  As shown above, there were several encouraging signs in June 2014....
Care for some even more exciting news?
June 2014 home sales (108) were the highest month of June home sales seen anytime recently. Thus, the record high number of home sales in May and June is starting to make up for the disappointingly low number of home sales in March and April. Care for some even MORE exciting news?
A record number of home buyers signed contracts in June 2014 -- marking an astonishing, surprising, remarkable 51% increase over June 2013.  As shown above, despite strong sales in May and June, we're still tracking 7% behind the pace of 2013 home sales. We'll have to wait and see if the remainder of 2014 (spurred on by strong contracts in June 2014) can help us meet and/or surpass last year's count of 1,014 home sales. Further treats you'll find in my full market report (online or PDF) include....
Care to read about all of these juicy details (and more!) in my full 30-page market report? You can read it online or download the PDF. Also, as always, if you're interested in talking to me about buying a home in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County.....or if you are interested in selling your current home.....just drop me a line by email (scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com) or call me at 540-578-0102. | |
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The pace of high end ($400K+) home sales in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County |
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 I typically break our market down into four price segments when looking at trends in home sales....
The graph above shows the trends in sales of homes over $400K when analyzing the average number of homes sold per month in a rolling twelve month period. A few observations....
For further analysis of home sales over $400K, check out HarrisonburgHousingMarket.com -- or email me (scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com) and we can discuss your house particularly. | |
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June Home Sales Preview |
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 June home sales have seemed strong thus far in 2014, but as it turns out, we're right on par with last June -- OK, technically, slightly ahead of last June. Review last month's market report for a broader picture of the health of our local housing market. | |
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How many home sales should we expect each year? |
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 It wasn't normal to have 1,600+ home sales per year --- but we did, at the peak of the housing boom. It wasn't normal to have < 800 home sales per year --- but we did, at the valley of the housing bust. Now, the question is --- what is a normal or typical amount of homes to be sold in any given year in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County? 900? 1000? 1100? 1200? Last year, our market raced up to an annual sales pace of over 1,000 home sales per year. It seemed that we would continue to see this annual pace of home sales accelerate --- perhaps to 1100/year or 1200/year. Thus far in 2014, however, we have not seen than 1000+ trend continue. Perhaps we're looking around 950 home sales this year, and then back up to 1000+ territory in 2015? | |
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Was 2013 a new trajectory, or an abnormality? |
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 OK -- this is as clearly as I can put it....
It could have been the new trajectory --- and perhaps 2014 home sales will catch back up later this year, after having been slowed down by wintry weather early in 2014. Or perhaps, 2013 was an abnormality --- and the pace of home sales in 2014 will not catch up to the fast pace of 2013. Only time will tell.... | |
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Small May Sales Surge Might Mean Market Still Mostly Stable |
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 Featured Property: 2944 Crystal Spring Lane, Harrisonburg, VA I just published my monthly report on the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market and things are starting to look slightly rosier, but it's still not as wonderful of a year of sales as we saw in 2013. Click here to read the entire report online -- or click here to download the full PDF -- or read on for some highlights....  The good news, as shown above, is that there were 99 home sales in May --- which is ever so slightly more (+2) than last May. Even with this slight improvement in the month of May, 12.6% fewer homes have sold thus far in 2014 as compared to 2013. After a strong market recovery last year, many (most?) people assumed we would see further market recovery this year --- both in the pace and price of sales. One theory is that the abnormally cold and snowy winter created a slower start to the year. We'll have to wait to see if that theory holds water as we move through the rest of the year. If that were to be true, I believe we would have seen more of an improvement in May, but I'm willing to patiently (?) wait to see what June home sales will show. Another theory is that a backlog of buyers (many more than normal) bought in 2013, and that the pace of home sales in 2014 is returning to the trend we were otherwise seeing in 2011 - 2012.  Also in the "pretty exciting, but don't order the party bagel from Mr. J's yet" category -- the 99 home sales we saw in May was actually the strongest month of May sales in recent history. That's good news, even if it does beat the old record of 97 by only two home sales.  There is good and bad news when examining the pace at which contracts are being signed this year....
And if those words didn't jump off the page at you and give you hope and enthusiasm for the weekend ahead, then take look through the full report that offers lots of colorful graphs that are bound to inform and entertain. You can read it online here or download the PDF here. Also, as always, if you're interested in talking to me about buying a home in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County.....or if you are interested in selling your current home.....just drop me a line by email (scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com) or call me at 540-578-0102. | |
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Contracts in May 2014 Almost Sets New Record |
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 May 2014 nearly set a new record for the number of contracts signed in a single month in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. As shown above, there were 136 contracts --- just shy of last year's 143 contracts in May 2013. Hopefully, this will help the somewhat slow start to the 2014 housing market. | |
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Will May 2014 Contracts Revive The 2014 Market? |
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 As shown above, year-to-date home sales are down this year (233) as compared to last year (284). Many suspect that the long, cold winter may have made the first few months of the year slower than they would have otherwise been. Per that theory, we should see a huge rebound in contracts (now / recently / soon) to help the 2014 market catch back up with where the 2013 market was last year. Let's see what we're seeing thus far.... April contract numbers were strong in 2014, but not as strong as in 2013....
Now, let's look at the first 15 days of May, this year versus last year....
As you can see, over the past 45 days buyers have been buying at the same pace (actually a bit slower) than last year. Thus far we're not seeing a rebound of higher buying numbers than last year at this time. So, the big question -- we've seen an 18% decline in YTD sales so far in 2014 -- will that remain at -18% for the rest of the year? Will 2014 pull even for no gain or loss? Somewhere in between? Theories, predictions and guesses are welcome! | |
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Sellers believe the local housing market is recovering |
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 The graph above examines the trend in the number of homes for sale in Harrisonburg and Rockingham over the past seven years. After three years of declining inventory levels (2011, 2012, 2013) we are now finally seeing inventory levels starting to increase again. This likely means....
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Puzzling start to 2014 for local housing market |
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 Featured Property: 1103 Dices Spring Road, Weyers Cave, VA I just published my monthly report on the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market and thus far, 2014 is not as exciting of a year as 2013 was for our local housing market. Click here to review the entire report online -- or click here to download the full PDF -- or read on for some highlights....  2013 was an encouraging year in the local housing market. After many years of a declining pace of home sales, we finally saw a (strong!) rebound in the home sales activity. Now, however, with four months of 2014 behind us, we are facing a very different trend when comparing year over year trends -- the pace of home sales has declined 18% year-over-year. This could be the result of the icy winter weather in 2014... but that is becoming a less likely theory as we move through Spring. The next theory I'll throw out is that 2013 was a rebound year, with higher than normal sales volume, and 2014 is is reverting back to the slow upward trend that began in 2011. Even though it's not highlighted in yellow above, we should also note that prices seem to be improving year-to-date, with a 3% increase in median sales price.  Going back to the rebound theory -- the blue line in this graph shows the month-by-month sales experienced during 2013. As is quickly evident, last year's home sales were head and shoulders above any other recent year of home sales. Home sales this year (red) certainly look rather unexciting in comparison to last year (2013) though when taken within the context of 2012 (green) we see that there has been an improvement when looking at a 24 month differential. Again, this may indicate that 2013 was a year of our marketing bouncing back and burning through old inventory, but that the 2013 sales pace was not sustainable moving forward. Now, here are your teasers to encourage you to read the rest of this data filled report....
There's much, much more. Read it online (here) or download the PDF (here) and as always, if you're interested in talking to me about buying a home in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County.....or if you are interested in selling your current home.....just drop me a line by email (scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com) or call me at 540-578-0102. | |
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Buyers are signing lots of contracts thus far in May 2014 |
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 Contracts are being signed quickly in May 2014 (40 contracts in 8 days) --- which shows a solid upwards trend for the first five months of the year if we extrapolate to a potential total for May (155?) based on this strong pace of contract activity within the first week (+) of May. | |
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Inventory Up 17% Over the Past Two Months |
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 Finally, the weather is warming up, and homeowners are putting their houses on the market. Inventory levels are starting to increase in the typical spring surge. Good for buyers --- more options. Not quite as good for sellers --- more competition. | |
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Changes in Number of Homes For Sale, By Price Range |
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 Above you can see the changes in inventory levels over the past year in four price ranges.... Under $200K (-1%)
$200K - $300K (-15%)
$300K - $400K (+50%)
Over $400K (+13%)
Learn plenty more about our local housing market at HarrisonburgHousingMarket.com. | |
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Home Sales Still Soft at Start of Spring Selling Season |
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 Featured Property: 310 Victoria Drive, Bridgewater, VA 22812 I just published my monthly report on the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market -- click here to review the entire report online -- or click here to download the full PDF. Below are a few highlights you might be interested to know about....  As shown above, home sales in March were the lowest that we have seen over the past several years. This is undoubtedly due to the absurdly low temperatures this winter PLUS the many snowfalls PLUS the many days that schools were closed. Now that the warmer weather is upon us we will hopefully see an increase in home sales come April and May.  We also saw a smaller number (91) of buyers sign contracts during March as compared to last March (114) --- though an increase from March 2012 (87). Let's hope that the warm Spring days of April will lead to many (many!) buyers going to see houses and sign contracts.  A significant part of whether buyers will write offers is related to whether they are finding compelling houses on the market -- and we're finally starting to see increases in inventory levels. These new listings will hopefully rejuvenate buyer interest and get them off of the sidelines and into the buying market.  Amidst a few market indicators that aren't as positive as they could be, here is one bright spot --- sales prices of attached dwellings (duplexes, townhouses, condominiums) are going UP! Want to know more? Get all the juicy details in the full report. Read it online or download the PDF. As always, if you're interested in talking to me about buying a home in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County.....or if you are interested in selling your current home.....just drop me a line by email (scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com) or call me at 540-578-0102. | |
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Average Number of Contracts in March 2014 |
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 Many people I talked to during March said it seemed as if LOTS AND LOTS of properties were going under contract during March. As it turns out (shown above) there were only 91 contracts signed during March 2014. This is roughly the average of the number of contracts seen per month during the previous six months of March. I had hoped for better --- though perhaps the shortage of buyers signing contracts is related to the low inventory levels, leaving buyers with a smaller number of choices than they would like to have. | |
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Inventory Levels Down Year Over Year |
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 Much to some home sellers' dismay, my post yesterday was merely an April Fools Day joke. So, where do we really stand as far as current inventory levels? There are more homes (+20) on the market as compared to a month ago --- but there are fewer homes (-29) on the market as compared to a year ago. Sellers -- you will likely have the least competition (from other sellers) now --- if you're listing your home this spring, consider doing so NOW! Buyers -- be encouraged, inventory levels are starting to increase, and you should have further options of homes to buy as we continue through the next 15, 30, 60 days. | |
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Inventory Levels Plummet As Warm Days Return |
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 Apparently, all we needed were a few warm days.... Inventory levels have drastically declined over the past week --- confirming that there really were plenty of home buyers in the market, but that they snow and frigid temperatures were holding them back. After inventory levels stayed relatively constant through the end of February, buyers came out in full force during the last week of March to write contracts on nearly every home on the market! There are now only 41 homes remaining in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County! The only question that remains at this point is whether enough homeowners will put their homes on the market in April to replenish the supply of homes for sale..... ......oh, and I suppose the other remaining question is whether you fell for my not-really-believable-at-all April Fools joke. :) | |
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Which information sources do YOU use frequently during the home search process? |
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 Buyers across the country have spoken -- the graph above shows the information sources that are used "frequently" during the home search process. | |
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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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