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Preston Lake developer seeks approval for expansion, higher density |
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![]() Preston Lake, a large mixed use development east of Harrisonburg began selling homes in 2008, was foreclosed on by Wells Fargo in 2011, and was then acquired by a developer out of Maryland in 2012. Tomorrow night, the developer will present a proposal to the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors to make several changes to the community, including most notably:
[1] Proposed Addition of 336 Apartments As shown below, the corner of the property that is bisected by the new Southeast Connector Road is proposed to change from being single family homes and townhouses, to being two large apartment buildings. ![]() [2] Proposed Addition of 76 Quads As shown below, the intended soccer field and walking trails are proposed to be replaced by 76 quads --- single level villas. The location of the park would then be adjusted as well. This expansion/revision utilizes a portion of the adjacent property already owned by the developer. ![]() [3] Proposed Reconfiguration of Townhouses As shown below, the townhouses intended to be built along Massanetta Springs Road are proposed to be rearranged a bit, and expanded from 55 townhouses to 66. ![]() [4] Townhouses and More Townhouses As shown below, additional townhouses are being proposed adjacent to the already expansive townhouse section that surrounds the large Village Green. This expansion/revision utilizes a portion of the adjacent property already owned by the developer. ![]() [5] Expanded Single Family Home Section As shown below, an adjacent property owned by the new developer is proposed to be added into the overall Preston Lake development. ![]() Here are some pertinent documents that I obtained from the County that will be presented and discussed at the public hearing....
If these changes to the Preston Lake master plan impact you, definitely plan to attend the Public Hearing tomorrow (Dec 18, 2013) at 6:30 PM to let your voice be heard. | |
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One Third of Homes That Sell Do So Within 90 Days |
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![]() Homes that are selling these days are doing so relatively quickly. In fact, more than 1 out of 3 homes (35%) that sells closes less than 90 days after being listed for sale. Include with that those that close in the next 90 days (30%) and we find that an amazing 65% of homes that sell have closed within six months of first coming on the market. This is not, however accounting for the many homes that never sell -- that linger on the market, or are eventually taken off the market. Has your home been on the market for more than 90 days without selling? More than 180 days? Here are some thoughts to consider.... If you want your home to sell faster, you may need to reduce the price | |
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National Commentary on Harrisonburg Student Housing Market |
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Click the images below to read two recent national news articles about student housing that provide commentary on Harrisonburg related to the recent sale of University Fields. ![]() (archive) ![]() (archive) | |
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Increasing Sales Plus Increasing Prices Equals |
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![]() At the request of one of my clients, I decided to take a look at the volume (dollars) of real estate sold in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County over the past few years. As you'll see above, there has been a significant increase over the past two years, from $155MM (in 2011) to $190MM (in 2013) -- and we still haven't closed out 2013 yet. This shouldn't be too surprising, as we're seeing increasing sales (+14% YTD) and increasing prices (+2% YTD) so it is only natural that we'd see an increase in the overall volume of residential real estate sold in this area. Read more about our local housing market online.... HarrisonburgHousingMarket.com | |
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Steady Improvement in the Pace of Local Home Sales |
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![]() Is the local housing market improving? I'd say so. As shown above, there has been a steady increase in the pace of home sales over the past three years. This year (2013) has shown the most home sales (924) over the past three years --- without even including December sales! Perhaps we'll break 1000 home sales / year by the end of the year? Read more about our local housing market online.... HarrisonburgHousingMarket.com | |
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Understanding Assessments in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County |
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![]() Learn More Here: City | County The ASSESSED VALUE of a property is the value assigned to the property by the local assessor's office, for the purpose of determining how much you will pay in taxes. The MARKET VALUE of a property is the price at which a property would sell in the current market. As shown above, properties in the City of Harrisonburg tend to sell for a bit less than their assessed value.....while properties in Rockingham County tend to sell for a bit more than their assessed value. However -- there is a great deal of variance --- explore the data via... HarrisonburgAssessments.com | |
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Home Sales, Prices Rising in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County |
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![]() Featured Home: 1787 Broadridge Drive, Harrisonburg, VA I just published my monthly report on the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market -- and despite a slower than expected November, the full year of home sales data is still looking great. Click here to download the 28 page PDF, click here to read the full report online, or scroll down for some highlights. ![]() As shown above, November was a month of mixed indicators....
Contracts declined rather unexpected in October, which could have been a slowing down of our overall housing market after a fantastic first 10 months of the year --- but with a bit more data to now work with, I believe contract numbers were low in October due to buyer uncertainty during the temporary federal government shutdown. As shown above, November contracts bounced back, showing a 57% improvement over last November. Inventory levels continue to decline in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, with only 584 properties currently on the market --- a 22% decline from two years ago, and a far cry from the 1,000+ properties on the market a year or so before that. These declines in inventory are helping to balance the market between buyers and sellers. ![]() There is a LOT more the full report, so click here to download the full December 2013 Harrisonburg & Rockingham County Real Estate Market Report. An Important Caveat: Yes, our overall housing market is improving. But no, that does not apply equally to all price ranges, locations and property types. We can chat about your specific property to see whether that segment of the market is performing better or worse than the overall market. 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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Downtown Holiday Tour |
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![]() Don't miss this year's Downtown Holiday Tour, happening this Sunday from 1pm until 5pm. You'll enjoy seeing a selection of Old Town's finest homes and visit downtown lofts and work spaces decorated for the holidays. VIRGINIA QUILT MUSEUM Tours start at the Virginia Quilt Museum where you can pick up your tickets, maps, and tour exhibits about our quilting heritage. A SELECTION OF OLD TOWN HOMES
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Comparison of Assessments and Sales Prices in the City of Harrisonburg |
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![]() click here for more details I frequently hear from homeowners wondering why their assessed value is so high AND from other homeowners wondering why their assessed value is so low. Some homeowners know they could never sell their home for the assessed value, and others know they could it for more than the assessed value. So, to further understand assessed values, let's explore their relationship to sales prices. Click here to view a full comparison of 2013 Sales Prices and 2014 Assessed Values for the City of Harrisonburg. | |
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Fixed Mortgage Interest Rates Remain Relatively Steady |
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![]() Fixed mortgage interest rates continue to hover between 4% and 4.5% --- for six months now. This continues to provide buyers with a great opportunity to lock in their housing costs at historically low levels. Over the next 3 - 5 years we are likely to see increases in both home sales prices as well as mortgage interest rates. Source: Freddie Mac | |
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New Map Search makes finding your next home even easier |
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![]() Be sure to check out the brand new map search on my web site, , designed with a fully-responsive layout that ensures a great user experience regardless of the device you are searching on: desktop, tablet, or smartphone. You can use a variety of search criteria when using this new map search -- and you can create custom polygon searches to define a specific area. Create an account (or log into your existing account) on my web site to save a search or sign up for property alerts using your new map search criteria. Questions? Suggestions for further improvements? Email me at scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com. Start using the new map search today. | |
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Night at the Museum, an extraordinary gala event, just for grown ups |
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![]() Join me at the Explore More Discover Museum this coming Saturday for a fantastic evening of fun and food. This delicious evening will feature food and beverages from: Beyond, Clementine Cafe, Joshua Wilton House, Local Chop &Grill House, Rick's Cantina, Capital Ale House, New Leaf Pastry Kitchen, Billy Jack's Wing & Draft Shack, Jack Brown's Beer & Burger Joint, Cuban Burger and Kline's Dairy Bar. Click here to purchase tickets online. | |
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Diverse Economy Keeps Housing Market Afloat |
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As published in this month's Shenandoah Valley Business Journal.... The Harrisonburg and Rockingham County area have long enjoyed a stable and diverse local economy anchored by some of our area's largest employers. Those include James Madison University, Rockingham Memorial Hospital, Cargill, RR Donnelley, Massanutten Resort, Merck, Rosetta Stone, Eastern Mennonite University, Miller Coors, Dynamic Aviation and White Wave. The wide variety of employment sectors represented in our local area has provided stability to our overall local economy, which in turn has helped our local housing market remain more resilient than many around the country. Our current unemployment rate (5.3 percent) is well below the national rate (7.3 percent) and that difference was even more pronounced three short years ago when our local unemployment rate was 6.5 percent compared to the U.S. unemployment rate of 9.5 percent. Our relatively low local unemployment rate has kept foreclosures from becoming too significant of an issue in our local market. While there have been more foreclosures than normal in recent years, they have tapered off over the past year. Between 2000 and 2007 there were only between 50 and 100 foreclosures in any given year in all of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. This jumped up to a peak of 270 foreclosures in 2010, but has since declined to only 181 in the first 10 months of 2013. With fewer people losing their jobs in the economic downtown, we saw fewer people losing their homes to foreclosure. We also did not see as large of a real estate bubble that could have caused more local homeowners to be underwater on their mortgages. The most significant increases in home values in this area happened between 2002 (median price = $136,000) and 2006 (median price = $227,000). Home values shot up 67 percent during this four-year period, which was certainly not a sustainable rate of growth. However, due largely to the stability of our local economy, we did not largely enter into the declining spiral of rapidly increasing foreclosures paired with rapidly decreasing home values. In the following five years 2006 to 2011 our local home values declined only 18 percent from $226,000 to $186,000. Since that time, we have seen home values start to increase again. If there had been greater turmoil in employment in our local area, more people would have lost their homes to foreclosure, which would have dragged home values down even further, as experienced in many larger metropolitan areas. The strength and diversity of our local economy have helped us to weather many storms in the past, including the recent collapse of the housing market in the United States and ensuing struggles in the U.S. economy. As economic indicators start to trend more positively, our local area seems poised to continue to grow and diversify. Exciting new projects such as Innovation Village @ Rockingham will likely continue to spur on our local economy, providing further stability for our local housing market for years and decades to come. | |
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City SFH Assessments Down 1%, Sales Prices Up 3% |
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![]() As reported in today's Daily News Record, assessed values in the City of Harrisonburg stayed relatively stable over the past year. As shown above, the average assessed value of single family homes decreased 1% over the past year from $235,000 to $231,900. In the same time period, average sales prices increased by 3%. A few clarifying notes....
Read more about the latest update to City of Harrisonburg assessed values in the DNR article or read more about market values at HarrisonburgHousingMarket.com. | |
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Special Shopping Events in Downtown Harrisonburg |
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![]() NOVEMBER 29 - Shop Local for Black Friday The businesses of downtown Harrisonburg are providing great specials and some participating locations are opening early and/or closing later to allow for more shopping time. Others are offering festive holiday treats to enjoy while tackling that holiday gift list. And many are offering special pricing and discounts on merchandise. Participating businesses....
NOVEMBER 30 - Small Business Saturday Small Business Saturday on November 30 is another chance for holiday shoppers to visit downtown for holiday special, discounts, gift baskets, project ideas and demos, refreshments, and more. Larkin Arts will also be offering its special Art Market event from 1:00 to 5:00 pm, featuring handmade arts and crafts from more than 15 local vendors.
DECEMBER 13-15 - Shop Til You Drop Holiday Open House
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Pickarious, A Video Powered Trading Post for Harrisonburg |
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![]() Have you checked out Pickarious yet? It's Harrisonburg's video-powered trading post (created by my brother-in-law and others) and offers a unique new way to sell (or buy) some of the things you have around your home or office that you aren't using. Go check it out, via Pickarious.com. | |
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Townes at Bluestone selling quickly |
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![]() If you were hoping to buy a townhouse at The Townes at Bluestone, act quickly! There is one remaining building in Section One, with seven townhouses. Of those seven....
Click here to view the available townhouses, floor plans, standard features, or photos of the new model home at The Townes at Bluestone. Why are these townhouses selling so rapidly?
Let me know if you'd like to take a peek at the new model home at The Townes. Just call me 540-578-0102 or send me an email: scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com. | |
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2013 likely to have strongest home sales since 2007 |
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![]() This has certainly been a strong year of home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County -- in the first 10.6 months of the year we have already surpassed annual sales for 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. And with 41 more sales this year, we will have exceeded 2008 home sales as well. | |
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RMH Expanding Hospital Campus Again |
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![]() The new Rockingham Memorial Hospital (now Sentara RMH Medical Center) recently built the RMH Funkhouser Women's Center and is now expanding again. The Sentara RMH Orthopedics Center and Advanced Imaging Services will be a new, free-standing, two-story, 52,000 square-foot facility that is planned to open in September 2015, located next to the Funkhouser Women's Center. "We are pleased to have an extremely talented staff of medical professionals who are able to offer a comprehensive range of high-quality orthopedic services to our growing community," said Carrie Willetts, program director for Orthopedics, Sports and Spine Services. "The increasing need for these services, and our expansion of staff to meet the growing need for them, led the Sentara RMH Board to approve construction of this new facility."Read more about this exciting addition at RMH here. | |
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New Construction in Heritage Estates, 55+ Community in Harrisonburg |
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![]() Construction is underway on a new model home at Heritage Estates, a 55+ community on Garbers Church Road adjacent to Heritage Oaks Golf Course. If you, or your parent(s) are considering a move and would be looking for a low maintenance home in a community with a swimming pool and friendly neighbors, let's meet over at the new model home at Heritage Estates so I can tell you a bit more about the community. Drop me a line at scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com or call me at 540-578-0102. | |
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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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