Market
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Inventory Levels Have Been Dropping For Almost An Entire Decade |
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At the end of last month there were only 127 homes for sale in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. Five years ago, at the end of April 2017, there were 411 homes for sale. Five years before that, at the end of April 2012, there were 733 homes for sale. Home buyers over the past year have had fewer options of what to buy at any given point in time than ever before in the past decade, and possibly ever before, ever. The low inventory levels don't mean fewer buyers are buying -- in fact, more buyers are buying on an annual basis than ever before. The low inventory levels are an indication that there is much more buyer demand than seller supply, so new listings get scooped up (go under contract) within a matter of days -- thus, not contributing to the inventory levels at the end of the month. | |
Is The Harrisonburg Housing Market Nine Percent Overvalued? |
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There's a good article to read over at Fortune from earlier this week... In a nutshell... [1] Moody's Analytics believes the housing boom will wind down in the coming year, perhaps leading to no year-over-year home price growth a year from now. [2] Zandi, chief economist at Moody's, does not think we will see large price corrections, but some markets might. [3] Moody's ran an analysis of local housing markets within the context of local income levels to estimate which markets might be overvalued. [4] Of the 392 metropolitan statistical areas they studied, 149 markets are overvalued by at least 25%... with a high of 73% in Boise. As you can see from the map above (embedded in the article at the link above) the analysis by Moody's indicates that the Harrisonburg market may be 9% overvalued within the context of income. Read the entire article for much more commentary and further insights... | |
If Home Sales Are Going To Slow, April Did Not Show It |
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Many wonder or suspect if home sales will slow in 2022 because of rising mortgage interest rates. That is certainly just one of the reasons why home sales could slow -- they could also slow because there aren't enough homeowners willing to sell their homes. Low supply = slow sales. Above, you'll see that we've seen just about the same number of home sales this year as last year during the first four months of the year. Furthermore, home sales this April were stronger than last April!? Finally, there are likely still some April home sales that closed this past Friday that aren't showing up in the MLS yet. So... if home sales are really going to slow down in 2022, it doesn't seem that April sales figures are showing that. Maybe things will slow down in May? Or maybe not! | |
Home Buyer Demand, While Possibly Reduced Due To Higher Interest Rates, Seems To Still Exceed Supply |
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This is totally anecdotal at this time, so I'll see what the data seems to indicate when I compile my market later this month, but thus far.. Home Buyer Demand, While Reduced Due To Higher Interest Rates, Seems To Still Exceed Supply That is to that I suspect... [1] Buyer demand is decreasing, somewhat, due to higher mortgage interest rates. [2] The amount of buyer demand in the market is still greater than the amount of seller supply. Case in point - the anecdote - would be two very (!!) similar properties that came on the market over the past few months... The first property came on the market when the average 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate was around 4.3%. There were six offers within 72 hours. The second property came on the market when the average 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate was around 5.1%. There were three offers within 72 hours. So... yes, I think higher rates will reduce buyer demand, but that reduced demand might very well continue to exceed available supply for some time to come! | |
Home Price GROWTH Seems Likely To Decline In 2022 |
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It seems likely that we will see a decline in home price GROWTH in 2022. Here are the changes in the median sales price over the past five years... 2017 = +3% 2018 = +7% 2019 = +5% 2020 = +10% 2021 = +10% While I don't think we will see the median home PRICE decline in 2022... ...I do think we will see the GROWTH in the median home price decline. Given quickly rising mortgage interest rates, it seems more likely than not that we will NOT see another 10% increase in the median sales price of homes in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County this year. I think we are likely to still see the median sales price increase, but perhaps not as quickly as it has over the past two years. | |
Is FOMO Fueling Rising Home Prices? |
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The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicates that there are signs of a brewing housing bubble... and FOMO (fear of missing out) might be a contributing factor. You'll find the article from the Dallas Fed and some accompanying graphs here... Some summary points from that article... [1] If lots of home buyers believe current, large, housing price increases will continue, further and stronger buying can be fueled by FOMO - the fear of missing out - which can drive prices up even further. [2] The Dallas Fed calls this phenomenon described above "expectations-driven explosive appreciation" or "exuberance" and it seems to be happening in many housing markets right now. [3] The U.S. housing market has shown signs of exuberance for more than five consecutive quarters. [4] Since the beginning of 2020 there has been a divergence between home prices and rental rates... home prices have been going up much more quickly than rental rates. [5] Much of the data the Dallas Fed analyzed shows signs of "abnormal U.S. housing market behavior" -- which probably is not a surprising descriptor for anyone who has been in the market (buying or selling) over the past few years. [6] Factors contributing to the abnormal market behavior seem to include historically low interest rates, pandemic-related fiscal stimulus programs, Covid-19-related supply-chain disruptions among other factors. So, that was most of the worrisome parts of the article, but this little paragraph towards the end is somewhat of a reassuring finale... "Based on present evidence, there is no expectation that fallout from a housing correction would be comparable to the 2007-09 Global Financial Crisis in terms of magnitude or macroeconomic gravity. Among other things, household balance sheets appear in better shape, and excessive borrowing doesn’t appear to be fueling the housing market boom." So... it's possible that there is a housing bubble (though every local market is different and will behave differently) and if there is a bubble, prices could flatten out or decline, but if they do it doesn't seem likely that it will have the same impact as the 2007-09 housing and financial crisis. Happy Monday!? ;-) P.S. Read the actual article yourself... it has some great additional commentary and context... | |
More Contracts Were Signed In March 2022 Than In Any Month In The Past Decade |
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Wow! I knew that a lot of homes went under contract last month when I compiled my market report but I hadn't yet put it in a larger context. During March 2022, contracts were signed on a total of 186 properties in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. Looking back an entire decade, there has never been a month when more contracts have been signed! In fact, there have only been a handful of months (five) when more than 160 contracts were signed. So, what gives? Why so much contract activity? [1] The market is strong, silly, sellers are excited to sell, buyers are excited to buy. [2] For some reason, more sellers than usual waited until March to list their homes (instead of January or February) causing an unexpected peak in March 2022. [3] Sellers are buyers are seeing interest rates rising and sellers want to go ahead and sell before rates get too high and buyers want to go ahead and buy before rates get too high. Maybe 1 and 2 and 3? ;-) Whatever the reason, there isn't any doubt that March 2022 was a record setting month for buyer and seller activity in the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market. | |
If Higher Mortgage Interest Rates Will Cause The Market To Shift, It Does Not Seem To Be Happening Yet |
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In theory, as mortgage interest rates increase, some buyers will be priced out of considering some homes that they would like to purchase. If enough buyers are priced out of being able to afford their preferred home, maybe we will see fewer offers on homes listed for sale. If there are fewer offers on homes offered for sale, then perhaps buyers won't keep having to pay so much over the asking price. If buyers aren't paying so much over the asking price, maybe the 10% per year increase in median sales price in our area will start to move back to a more reasonable 3% to 4% per year. But, thus far, these are all just theories and possibilities, not actualities. Despite significant increases in mortgage interest rates over the past month (and 3 - 4 months) we don't yet seem to be seeing a decline in the amount of buyer interest in many or most new listings. I'll keep wondering if we will see that shift happening... and I'll keep crunching the numbers to see if there is evidence that it is happening... but if you are holding off on buying a home right now because you are absolutely certain that a shift is coming... it might be a long wait. | |
Homeowners In Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, Likely Improved Their Net Worth By Approximately $25,000 Over The Past Year |
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This fits into the category of...
The median value of a home sold in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County was $244,900 in 2020. One year later, in 2021, it was $270,000. This marks a $25,000 increase in the value of a median priced home over the course of a single year. So, if you have owned a home in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County over the past year you have likely seen a $25,000 increase in your net worth... or more if you own a home valued above the median sales price... or less if you own a home valued lower than the median sales price. So... Homeowners: Be thankful for the value of your home increasing so heartily over the past year. Would Be Home Buyers: Keep trying. It's a competitive market, but it is worth continuing to try to buy a home. Everybody Else: Some people may not be in a position to buy a home because of their job or income situation, because they are working to pay off debt, because they might need to move within the next few years, or for any number of other reasons. That's OK. But if you haven't bought a home and aren't planning to... but you could afford to do so, and you plan to live here for awhile... maybe we should chat. | |
Home Sales Rise Again, Along With Prices, In February 2022 |
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Happy Friday Morning, and for many of you, Happy (end of) Spring Break! I hope your week has gone well, whether you had a break or not. I was able to skip town for part of this week down to Virginia Beach where I was delighted to experience several beautiful sunrises like this one on Monday... There sure is something relaxing about being near the water... and if the water (and air) were warmer, it probably would have been quite relaxing to be in the water as well! :-) Before I dive into this month's charts and graphs, a few quick notes... Check Out Magpie Diner... Each month in this space I'll be highlighting one of my favorite spots in the 'burg, or surrounding, where I enjoy dining, having a cup of coffee, etc. This month... it's Magpie Diner... a breakfast and lunch restaurant with a diner-inspired menu. If I'm at Magpie, I'll likely be having the french toast of the week with some scrambled eggs and a side of bacon. Yum! Have you checked out Magpie? If not, I highly recommend that you do so sometime this month. To make it even more fun, I'm giving away a $50 gift card to Magpie Diner. Enter your name/email here and I'll pick a winner in about a week. :-) Featured Home... The beautiful home pictured above is a custom built, single level home with amazing views from the top of Crossroads Farm. Check out additional photos and all of the details of this home by visiting 750FrederickRoad.com. Download All The Graphs... Some of you prefer to download the full slide deck of charts and graphs. You can do so here. Now, let's move on to the market data... As shown above, things started getting busier in February... [1] There have been 199 home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County thus far in 2022... which is a 5.85% increase from the same timeframe last year. [2] When looking at the past 12 months there have been 1,680 home sales in our local market, which is an even larger (10.53%) increase over the prior 12 months. [3] These increase in the quantity of home sales have been accompanied by an 11% increase in the median sales price over the past year. The median sales price of all homes sold in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County increased from $247,900 up to $274,227 in the last year alone! [4] If you thought homes couldn't sell any faster... you (and I) were wrong. The median "days on market" for Harrisonburg and Rockingham County has fallen 29% over the past year... from a median of seven days to a median of five days! But, despite these strong increases across the board... not all property types have seen the same changes over the past year... As shown above, the "attached" portion of the local market (townhomes, duplexes and condos) have seen a bigger boom over the past year than detached (single family) homes... [1] We have seen 8% more detached home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County over the past year as compared to the prior year, while... [3] We have seen a much larger 17% increase in attached home sales during that same time. [2] The median sales price of detached homes has increased 9% over the past year, while... [4] The median sales price of attached homes has increased by 18% in a single year! So, it has certainly been a good time to sell (and a tough time to buy) a townhouse or duplex lately! Looking at the monthly "play by play" we can see that things started to get a bit spicy in February... As you might notice, above, the 104 home sales we saw this January fell right in the middle of the pack for what we might have expected in a January. But... February was different. We saw 95 home sales this February which was well and above any other recent month of January. Where do we go from here? We'll know within the next few weeks as we finish out March. Will we be able to surpass last March's very, very active month with 139 home sales? Will we fall somewhere between March 2020 and March 2021? Stay tuned to find out. I know we're only two months into the year, but... Yes, again, we are setting new records. In 2020, the 163 home sales see in January and February was the fastest start in many years. Then in 2021, I said the same about January and February with 188 home sales. And yet, here we are again, with 199 home sales in the first two months of the year, we seem poised to see another fast paced and highly active year in our local real estate market! Someone asked me recently if Covid had been a real drag on the local housing market. Yes, I said, for a few months... You'll notice on the graph above that Covid did seem to drag down the annual pace of home sales in early 2020... between April 2020 and September 2020. But then as we kept moving through fall 2020, and then into and through 2021, things just wouldn't let up. We saw month after month (with only a few exceptions) of stronger and stronger home sales. What caused this? At least some of it was, really, Covid. The place and space we call home became even more critical during the pandemic, and many folks found themselves living in homes that didn't work that well when all of a sudden they were working from home or had kids learning from home. So, "home" became even more important than ever -- causing plenty of homeowners to move to a new home. That, plus super low interest rates (to try to stabilize the economy), plus less discretionary spending, plus stimulus funds, all put more money in the bank accounts of would-be buyers, allowing many of them to jump on into the real estate market. Finally, an increasing number of people found themselves able to work from home... causing some folks to relocate to the Shenandoah Valley to work from a much more beautiful and relaxing place than they may have lived previously. As we continue to work our way through this pandemic that might eventually be considered an endemic, will we eventually see a flattening out or a decline in the pace of home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County? I'm not convinced that we will. Alongside all of the factors referenced above, the overall population growth in this area persists based on employers expanding, local college graduates staying in the area, parents of local college graduates retiring to the area, and much more. I think it is relatively likely we will continue to see a similarly active local housing market over the next few years. OK... tangent over... back to the numbers. ;-) This graph is showing the overall trends in home sales (quantity) and median prices over the past few years. I included it this month to draw out the magnitude of the raw data... we have seen the median sales price increase $62,000 over the past three years! That's great news for sellers, and for homeowners, but certainly is not very welcomed news for home buyers who have not yet bought a home. We saw a 10% increase in the median sales price in 2020 and 2021. I'm not thinking the increase will be as large in 2022, but I do think the median sales price will increase yet again this year. And where might the market be going from here, you might ask? Well... with a very strong month of contract activity in February (see above) it seems very likely that we'll see a strong month of closed sales in March. So, yes, we're about to enter the busiest time of the year... between March and August. Get ready! If you are hoping to buy a home soon, you might look at the graph above and get depressed by the low inventory levels. But... scroll back up to the previous graph for a moment and look at all of the contracts we usually see signed between March and August. Those buyers signing contracts (one could be you!) are almost all buyers signing contracts on homes that are listed for sale between March and August. So, while inventory levels at any given moment are not likely to increase over the next six months... there are almost positively going to be lots (and lots) of options of houses for you to buy over the next six months... or at least options of houses for which you can compete against lots of other eager home buyers. :-/ Indeed, the competition is fierce... and the market is moving quickly! The median "days on market" is five days right now... which means you need to go try to see any new listing of interest within the first day or two of when it hits the market for sale -- and you need to be ready to make an offer shortly thereafter if you are interested in buying that exciting new listing. Eventually we might (should?) see this metric start to increase a bit as the market slows... but we are definitely and assuredly not there yet. Lastly, how about those interest rates? If there is one external factor that has the highest likelihood of affecting home buying activity in 2022... it is rising mortgage interest rates. Just six months ago, the average mortgage interest rate on a 30 year mortgage was 2.87%... and it has risen more than a full percentage point in the past six months to 3.89% at the end of March. As such, not only are today's home buyers paying a higher purchase price for nearly any home that they might purchase -- but their monthly mortgage payment will also be higher now (than it has been in recent months and years) because of rising interest rates. It seems likely that these rates will either level out near 4% or continue to rise even a bit above 4% as we continue through 2022. OK! That makes it to the end of this month's recap of our local housing market. A few reminders for you... [1] Go eat at Magpie Diner. You're certain to love it! :-) [2] Looking to buy soon? Email me so we can chat about what you'd like to buy, and talk to a lender ASAP. Let me know if you'd like some recommendations. [3] Planning to sell soon? Let's meet to talk about your house, any needed improvements or preparations, pricing, timing, the market and more. Email me to set up a time to meet to talk. That's all for now. Be in touch anytime (email me or call/text 540-578-0102) if I can be of help to you or your family, friends, neighbors or colleagues. Hope to talk to you soon! | |
Lots Of Home Buyers Are Still Competing For New Listings |
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For many new listings, the competition is still quite fierce in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. Here are three recent examples I've been involved with or heard of in the past 10 days... [1] A townhouse in the City of Harrisonburg under $200K received 12 offers within three days. [2] A duplex in the County in the $300K's received 7 offers within three days. [3] A detached home in the City of Harrisonburg in the $300K's received 16 offers within four days. Wow! Now, this won't be the case for every new listing, in every price range, in every location... there are more buyers in some price ranges and for some locations than others. This also won't hold true independent of how a seller prices their home. A home that ends up selling for $200K will likely have a different number of offers based on whether they priced the property at $195K, $199K, $205K or $225K. But... yes... the market is still quite active, with plenty of buyers ready to buy, and many (to most) new listings being scooped up quite quickly. If you're getting ready to sell this spring, we should talk sooner rather than later about timing, preparations, pricing and more. | |
Timing The Sale Of Your Rental Property |
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Do you own a property in Harrisonburg occupied by a tenant? When you are ready to sell it, how will you go about that process? In the past, many landlords would try to secure a buyer for the home before their tenant moved out -- because they did not want a potential gap of several months without rental income while they waited to see if the rental property would sell. These days, if you'd like to sell your rental property, I'd suggest... 1. Give your tenant a notice of the non-renewal of the lease. 2. Once the tenant moves out, do any necessary minor cleaning or repairs and consider whether it would make sense to paint the interior of the property and/or replace any flooring. 3. List your property for sale. 4. Get overwhelmed by an incredibly high number of showings and likely a multitude of offers. 5. Gleefully select the offer with the most favorable terms and the fewest contingencies. 6. Proceed quickly and smoothly to closing. It won't always go this way -- of course -- but the market is starved (!) for new listings right now, especially in the price range where many tenant occupied properties fall. If you have a rental property that you would consider selling in 2022, let's talk! | |
Home Buyers Just Entering The Market Should Despair, Then Rejoice |
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Blue Line = Despair Orange Line = Rejoice As any buyer in today's market will tell you... there is very little on the market to buy right now. That's the blue line. Over the past 13 years there have been fewer, and fewer, and fewer homes for sale at any given time. But... more homes than ever before (in the past 13 years) sold in the past year, so there are very likely to be plenty of options of houses to buy coming on the market in future weeks and months. That said, they will likely go under contract - quickly - leaving us with low inventory levels all over again. So... would be home buyers... despair only for a moment about the lack of current inventory, and then rejoice that spring is coming and there will likely be plenty of homes to consider purchasing! | |
Each Year, 10% - 15% Of Home Buyers Pay Cash In Harrisonburg, Rockingham County |
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How often are home buyers paying cash for their homes in this area? It seems between 10% and 15% of home buyers are doing so each year according to data from the HRAR MLS. When a home sale is reported to the MLS, one of the required details is whether the purchase was made with cash or with financing. As shown above, 2021 feel right in the middle of the pack as far as the portion of home buyers who paid cash for their homes. So, what do you say, will you pay cash for your next home purchase? 😉 | |
12 Million Dollar Sales In The Past 12 Months |
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There have been (12) million dollar home sales over the past (12) months in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County as recorded in the HRAR MLS. For context, here ...
So... it turns out there have been twice as many homes sales over a million dollars in the past year than there have been over the entire decade before that! Wow! Explore the past year of million dollar home sales here. | |
New Homes are an Increasing Share of Total Home Sales in the Harrisonburg Area |
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First, some raw data... Resale Home Sales:
So, there have been more and more resale homes selling over the past five years. New Home Sales:
There have also been more and more new homes selling over the past five years. The graph at the top, though, tells a third story -- an increasing portion of home sales are new home sales. Between 2017 and 2020 new home sales comprised 12% - 14% of all home sales. Then, in 2021, that jumped up to 19% new home sales. Thus, last year, approximately one in every five homes sold was a new home. This would seem to be good news, generally, as there is an ever increasing number of people who want to buy homes and make Harrisonburg their home -- so we'll need to see more new homes to help provide that housing. | |
Slightly Fewer Home Sales, Much Higher Sales Prices In January 2022 |
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Happy Snowy Monday Morning! This is my favorite kind of snow... beautiful everywhere... but not sticking to the road... I hope you stayed warm inside yesterday and that enjoyed the Super Bowl last night. Hopefully your favorite team won... or you enjoyed the commercials... or you enjoyed the half time performance... or you enjoyed spending time with family and friends while partaking in all of the above!? It seems like the year just started, but we're already one eight of the way through the year! Before we get started, two quick links of interest... [1] The beautiful home featured on the cover of this month's market report is located at 471 Flower Drive at the base of Massanutten Resort is and currently for sale. [2] You can download all of the graphs and charts from my monthly report here. Now, onto the data... We're only looking at data for one month - and the slowest month of the year, so it's hard to draw many conclusions thus far, but here are a few things I am noticing... [1] There were slightly fewer home sales this year (103) than last year (106) during the month of January. [2] The median sales price over the past 12 months was $272,000 which is nearly 11% higher than the median sales price of $246,000 during the 12 months before that. [3] Homes are currently selling (going under contract) very quickly with a median of five days on the market - which is a 37.5% decline from the eight day pace a year ago. It is likely helpful to put this January in the context of other months of January, and other months, generally... As you can now see, the 103 home sales this January landed right between the 100 sales in January 2020 and the 106 sales in January 2022. So, it was a typical January based on the past few years - though well above the 65 home sales seen in January 2019. Furthermore, we should likely expect to see sales drop in February as they have each of the past two years. January tends to be the second slowest month of the year for home sales with February leading the pack. Once we then head into March we should start to see a steady increase in the monthly pace of home sales. Now, a historical observation that I hadn't noticed until now... This is one of the graphs I show you most months that allows us to look at how monthly home sales each year are stacking up compared to prior years. It seems the local housing market in 2020 was on par with 2019 all the way through August 2020 -- and then, the pace of home sales took off in the last four months of 2020, and have been accelerating ever since that time! But... maybe the pace of sales is leveling off a bit? As you can see, the annual pace of home sales accelerated quickly from 1,300 sales per year up to 1,600 sales per year between mid 2020 and mid 2021. Over the past six months, however, the annual pace of home sales seems to have stabilized right around 1,650 sales per year. It will be interesting to see whether this trend continues as we continue through 2022. Now, then, looking at contract activity - which typically precedes the closing of a home sales by 30 to 60 days... Two things to note about contract activity... [1] Last January we saw 133 buyers and sellers sign contracts to buy and sell houses in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. This January, only 110 contracts were signed. This means that we will likely see a bit of a drop off in closed sales come February. [2] Looking back at last February and March we should note that we will likely also see a decline in contract activity between January and February before we see a large increase in March. So, expect a continued "slower" pace of market activity for at least the next few weeks before things potentially start accelerating in early or mid March. Another story line to be watching in 2022 is what happens with inventory levels... Inventory levels have been declining for several years, most notably above through all of 2020. But during 2021, inventory levels remained relatively stable, and did not decline further. Maybe because they can't? There will always be some homes on the market as I don't think we'll get down to only five or ten or twenty five homes for sale. The floor, in this case, might be right around 100 homes for sale. It will be interesting to see whether we continue to see a range of around 95 to 130 homes for sale all year this year like we did last year. Part of the reason why inventory levels don't seem to be able to increase is because homes are going under contract so quickly... As shown above, 81% of homes that sold in the past year went under contract within 30 days of being listed for sale. Going a bit further, we also see that half of the homes that sold last year went under contract within only FIVE days of being listed for sale given the median of five days on the market. With homes going under contract so quickly, it is not surprising that inventory levels did not manage to increase much through 2021. Here, then, is another visualization of the speed at which homes are going under contract... As you can see, two years ago the median days on market was 18 days. That median days on market figure then speedily declined through summer 2021 when it hit just five days on the market. Since that time, it has leveled off at five days on the market, calling into question whether it could actually get any faster. As we continue through 2022 I will be monitoring this trend to see if the market seems to be slowing at all. Thus far, it is not. And, yet another story line to be following in 2022... The average 30 year mortgage interest rate hit an all time low in late 2020 of 2.65%. Average rates closed out 2021 just above 3%, but have now climbed, within a month, to above 3.5% and they have continued to climb during February 2022. As rates increase, a buyer's mortgage payment increases depending on how much of a purchase price they are financing. At some point, rising interest rates will affect housing affordability -- for some buyers buying some houses. We will have to continue to observe this trend through 2022 to see if rising interest rates seem to be affecting the local housing market. So, as described above, there are plenty of possible developing trends in our local housing market. Stay tuned through 2022 to see if the market can and will stay just as strong in 2022 as it was in 2021. If so, it will continue to be a thrilling time for home sellers, and a bit of a challenging time for home buyers. If you are planning to buy a home, or sell a home, in 2022 let's connect soon to start talking about the process, the market and your goals and timing. Just reach out by email, phone or text (540-578-0102) and we can set up a time to meet. Until next time, enjoy the beautiful snow while it lasts -- it looks like temperatures will be starting to warm up come Wednesday! P.S. Happy Valentine's Day! | |
200 Home Buyers Paid More Than 5% Over Asking Price For Their Homes In The Past Year |
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Sometimes, you have to be willing to pay the price to get the house... Over the past year-ish (Feb 7, 2021 - Feb 6, 2022) there have been 1,660 home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. As noted earlier this week, 73% of buyers paid full price or more for their home -- which is 1,229 of those 1,660 home sales. But going a bit further... 200 buyers paid more than 5% over the asking price for the home they purchased in the past year. Looking just at those 200 transactions where buyers paid more than 5% over the asking price... on average, buyers paid $25,561 over the list price! How does that number strike you? It was much higher than I thought it would be... I guess the guy in the photo above is holding out $40,000 of cash -- slightly higher than the average of $25,561 noted above -- sorry for my illustrative exaggeration. ;-) | |
74% of Homes Sold for Full Price or Higher in the Past 12 Months! |
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A somewhat shockingly high number of homes sold at or above asking price over the past year...
So, what does that mean for you if you are selling or buying in 2022? SELLERS: If you want to sell for $400K, you likely don't need to list your home for $420K in order to leave yourself room to negotiate down on price. Listing it for $400K will likely do the trick, and might result in the house selling for more than $400K. BUYERS: Understand that you are likely to need to pay full price or higher for the house you plan to buy -- though that needs to be put in the context of the value of the home. Certainly, if a $400K house is listed for sale for $475K then you shouldn't pay full price or higher... Understanding the local real estate market is more important than ever for buyers and sellers in 2022! | |
January 2022 Home Sales, Like the Temperature, A Bit Cooler Than 2020, 2021 |
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I'm sure a few more January home sales will still show up in the data before I put my market report together, but a first look at January home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County indicates that the pace of home sales cooled a bit (like the temperatures) this January as compared to the last to months of January. Before the COVID surge (of home sales) we were often seeing 60 to 70 home sales in January, but there were more than 100 home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham during January of 2020 and 2021! Stay tuned for a full report of January home sales later this month, but it seems they will have dropped off a bit from last January. | |
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Scott Rogers
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