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Only (4) Liberty Square II townhomes remain.... |
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Constructing is coming to close in some of the most recently built townhome communities in Harrisonburg, such as Liberty Square II. As indicated above, only four townhouses are left for sale, and they are all current under construction. View: Pricing | 3 BR floor plan | 2 BR floor plan Let me know if you are interested in purchasing a townhome at Liberty Square II. | |
Harrisonburg-Rockingham ranked 9th Safest metro area |
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The Harrisonburg-Rockingham metro area has been ranked the 9th safest in the U.S. --- out of 366 metro areas --- by Congressional Quarterly. Read more....
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You will LOVE this statistic -- home sales up 77% thus far in February |
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Admittedly, I'm a day behind. So, Happy Valentine's Day yesterday, and I hope you LOVE the fact that our local housing market is off to a strong start in 2013. Above you will see that home sales are up 77% in the first half of February, as compared to the same time period last year. | |
City kids can (likely) attend County schools |
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Do you live in the City of Harrisonburg, but want your son or daughter to attend school in Rockingham County? Are you considering moving from the County to the City, but still want your son or daughter to attend school in Rockingham County? Rockingham County is continuing a program that will allow students that do not live in Rockingham County to apply to attend school in Rockingham County. A few notes....
Read today's DNR article on this topic here. | |
JMU to Raze (no, not raise) former Rockingham Cooperative building on W Grace St |
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Source: Google Street View Per the Daily News Record, JMU has announced that they will raze (remove, destroy, demolish) the former Rockingham Cooperative building shown above. This area will be coming surface level parking for now, though JMU will likely building something on it at some point in the future. Source: Google Maps The Rockingham Cooperative building (red "A" marker above) was purchased in 2010 as a natural fit into JMU's expanding campus. As shown above, it is a link between the former Harrisonburg High School building (labeled as Memorial Hall) and the remainder of the JMU campus (all shown in gold). Read the Daily News Record article here. | |
Cool Aerials from Google Maps: Quarry near Smithland Elementary |
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Hidden just out of site between Linda Lane and Interstate 81, there is a huge quarry -- possibly the site of a future 160-Acre Mixed Use Development. Previous Cool Aerials from Google Maps: | |
Overview of Virginia Housing Market in 2012 |
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The Virginia Associations of Realtor has published their annual review of the Virginia housing market, entitled "Pieces of Home" as shown above. Click here to read this comprehensive report. | |
Local Online Real Estate Resources |
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Just a reminder of a few resources to help guide your real estate decisions.... Central Shenandoah Valley Property Search http://www.ScottPRogers.com Monthly Real Estate Market Reports http://www.HarrisonburgHousingMarket.com Ongoing Housing Market Analysis & Commentary http://www.HarrisonburgHousingToday.com Comprehensive Data on Harrisonburg Townhouse Communities http://www.HarrisonburgTownhouses.com New Construction Homes For Sale http://www.HarrisonburgNewHomes.com Half Million (plus) Homes in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County http://www.HarrisonburgLuxuryHomes.com Most Recent Listings in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County http://www.NewListingsInHarrisonburg.com Trustee Sales in Harrisonburg & Rockingham County http://www.HarrisonburgForeclosures.com Bank Owned Properties in Harrisonburg & Rockingham http://www.HarrisonburgREO.com Potential Short Sales in Harrisonburg & Rockingham County http://www.HarrisonburgShortSales.com Owner Financed Properties in Harrisonburg & Rockingham County http://www.HarrisonburgOwnerFinancing.com Lease/Purchase Properties in Harrisonburg & Rockingham County http://www.HarrisonburgLeasePurchase.com Property Transfers in Harrisonburg & Rockingham County http://www.HarrisonburgPropertyTransfers.com | |
Home Sales, Contracts Strong in January 2013 |
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The February 2013 Harrisonburg & Rockingham County Real Estate Market Report has been published, with these bits of encouraging news about our local housing market. January home sales (47) were up 21% over last January (39)..... January contracts (76) were up 29% over last January (59).... When it comes to home values, last January was a bit of an anomaly, with much higher than normal median and average values. As such, it's best to look at 12-month indicators, where we will see small downward adjustments in home values....
Amidst higher sales, higher contracts, and slightly lower prices, inventory levels continue to decline.... It is also important to note that interest rates have started to increase (a bit) over the past several months.... As always, learn lots more by downloading the full February 2013 Harrisonburg & Rockingham County Real Estate Market Report. And, if you have questions about the local housing market, or if I can be of assistance to you with real estate that you own, or that you'd like to own, please be in touch. You can reach me most easily at 540-578-0102 or scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com. | |
Eureka! Median Days on Market more insightful than Average |
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The health of our local housing market has improved over the past year, but the one metric that has continued to appear quite depressing has been "Average Days on Market" -- shown above in blue. This is the average number of days between the listing date and closing date of properties that have actually sold. I have always used AVERAGE days on market, as that seems to be used quite widely in the industry as the best metric, but based on the encouragement of several of my blog readers, I have (finally) looked at how the MEDIAN days on market trend differs. As shown above, the Median Days on Market trend (red) seems to be a much better indication of how long it takes for a house to sell in our market. As the mathematicians among you know, an AVERAGE can be greatly skewed by outliers, for example some houses that have finally (!!) been selling over the past year or two that had extremely high days on market. A MEDIAN value is a better indicator of "central tendencies" when there are a significant number of outliers. Thus, in 2012, half of the homes that sold did so in less than 144 days, and half did so in more than 144 days. I believe that is much more helpful data than an average of 218 days on the market! | |
New Listings in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County |
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Now you can browse the last 14 days of new listings in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County via NewListingsInHarrisonburg.com. Feel free to bookmark this new site, and check back regularly, or.... If you want to keep up every house that is coming on the market, sign up to receive daily e-mail updates with all new listings. You can, of course, also sign up for your own Property Alerts account to set up as many custom searches as you'd like with e-mail alerts. | |
Cool Aerials from Google Maps: Frazier Quarry |
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You might have driven by Frazier Quarry on Waterman Drive and not even noticed this enormous quarry located within the Harrisonburg City Limits! You'll see a lot of the stone from Frazier Quarry located on the bluestone buildings at JMU. Learn more about bluestone, Frazier Quarry and JMU here. | |
How negotiable are bank owned (REO) list prices? |
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As you'll note, above, banks aren't that much more flexible on price than the average seller on the market. That said, their list prices are oftentimes more compelling than typical listings, which makes the "normal" amount of negotiating room less of a concern for most buyers. View upcoming Trustee Sales View current bank owned listings | |
Explore New Homes in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County |
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Click here to explore new homes for sale in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. Let me know if you'd like details on any of these properties for sale. | |
Local Housing Markets Regain Strength and Stability in 2012 |
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My recap of our local housing market, and some predictions, as published this week in the Shenandoah Valley Business Journal.... It was certainly an exciting time for homeowners as home sales doubled (829 to 1,669) during a five year period (2000-2005) in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. But after that amazing increase in home sales (and prices!) the market here and just about everywhere cooled off significantly. Over the subsequent five years (2005-2010) home sales fell more than 50% (1,669 to 758). After such turbulent times, even modest growth in home sales activity is a welcome sight to homeowners. Thus, the past two years of increased home sales (+4%, +9%) have been encouraging to see, and have been accompanied by stabilization in prices (+1%) over the past year. The question, then, for many people is what we should expect over the next few years in our local housing market. Home sales will continue to increase. Despite an increase in home sales over the past two years, there were roughly the same number of home sales in 2012 (864 sales) as took place 12 years earlier in 2000 (829 sales). During the same timeframe, however, the population of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County has increased from 108,322 to 127,354 according to the Weldon Cooper Center. This 17.5% increase in population suggests that current home sales (if the same percentage of the population purchased a home each year) should be closer to 1,015 home sales per year. As such, it seems safe to say that the current level of buyer activity is still lower than historically normal levels and we should see continued growth in home sales over the next several years. Median prices to slowly start to increase. Many other areas of Virginia and our nation experienced significant declines in home values over the last 5 to 7 years. Thankfully, the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County housing market has not seen significant declines in this area. After topping out at a median price of $195,500 in 2008, our local market's median price has only declined by 10% over the past four years to $175,000. Of note, this still marks an overall 51% increase in home values over the past 12 years. As we head into 2013 and 2014 we should expect to see further moderate increases in home values in our area, likely an increase of between 1% and 4% per year. Inventory levels to stay relatively low. There are fewer homes on the market now (572) than we have seen in several years. Overall inventory levels have dropped 15% over the past year, and 27% over the past two years. These lower inventory levels mean that many would-be sellers have decided to stay in their homes, perhaps after not being able to sell in a reasonable timeframe. These lower inventory levels do mean buyers will have fewer choices, but they also are helping to stabilize the local market. After five years of unsustainable increases in home sales and home values, and then five years of dizzying declines in both of those areas, we are finally seeing stability and moderate, sustainable growth in our local housing market. Given the diverse, and stable local economy, we should expect to see further improvement in our market over the next year years. | |
Rockingham is Virginia's 20th Healthiest County (of 131) |
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Rockingham County is ranked 20th in Virginia in County Health Rankings as of 2012. Explore more interactive maps at the Weldon Cooper Center.for Public Service. | |
Google Street View GREATLY expanded in Harrisonburg |
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Almost four years ago, I mentioned that you could drive virtually through most of Harrisonburg using Google Street View, with the big disclaimer that the data was relatively limited. No longer. The blue lines above show all of the streets where the Google Street View car has driven to capture imagery. And the imagery is a LOT clearer! This is East Market Street in 2009.... And this is the same general area in 2013.... This is certainly a wonderful way to explore the streets and neighborhoods of Harrisonburg! To access Google Street View, just click on the imagery to the left of a Google Map (circled in red below) or drag the yellow Google Street View man onto the map (circled in red below). | |
Harrisonburg is #2 Best-Performing Small City in Virginia |
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The Milken Institute recently published their "Best performing Cities" report which ranks cities across the country as to how well they are doing in "creating and sustaining jobs and economic growth." The ranking takes into account job, wage and salary, and technology growth. Harrisonburg, VA was ranked #22 (out of 179) in the Country --- and #2 in Virginia, behind Charlottesville. Click here for an interactive data table. Click here for a PDF of the full report. Click here for the Jan 28 Daily News Record article. | |
Boyers Road to end in cul-de-sac (at Route 33) |
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When the SouthEast Connector is finished (in December 2014) Boyers Road will no longer connect to Route 33 East. Instead, it will end in a cul-de-sac as shown above. Per Rockingham County, the cul-de-sac and road closure may not be exactly as depicted above, but conceptually this is what is planned Further details from Stephen King, Deputy County Administrator for Rockingham County, include.... With regards to residents and businesses on Boyers, those with frontage on Route 33 would continue to have access to 33 and the stub of Boyers that remains. Those residents on the cul-de-sac'ed side of Boyers would travel south a short distance to the new southeast connector. Again, precise location of the road closure and cul-de-sac (or similar feature) are to be finalized in the design. If you have any concerns or ideas you would like to share, we're eager to hear them.Click here to view an overview map of the entire Southeast Connector. Click here to view a map of the section of the Southeast Connector between Reservoir Street and Route 33 East. | |
You can use money in your IRA to invest in real estate! |
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I have several clients who have purchased real estate using a Self-Directed IRA. While there are certainly some risks, and it can seem like a complex process at first, there are some distinct advantages of considering this strategy....
Here are several articles that will help you better understand the concept....
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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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