Charlottesville Area Stats for May– Sales Lag, so Does Median Home Price
June 19, 2007 | 1 Comment
It is time to take a look at the sales statistics for the Charlottesville area for the month of May. Unfortunately, Wordpress is giving me problems with picture uploads, so I will do my best to convey the information without the use of fancy graphics. Hopefully I can have the issue resolved in time for the June stats.
May 2007
Overall, the Charlottesville area was down 21% in May compared to last year (308 sales v. 390 sales).
The biggest percentage drop was in Greene County. Greene county’s may sales were 73% lower than last year’s monthly total (13 v. 35).
The City of Charlottesville took the prize for biggest actual drop. The city saw a dip in sales of 37 closed transactions which was 37% lower than last year. My guess is that the lack of condo sales is largely responsible for the drop.
Every other area dipped as well, but the percentages were lower– Albemarle -6%, Fluvanna -10%, Nelson -40%. While Nelson County’s percentage drop was large, this number only represented 7 fewer closed transactions.
Year-to-Date 2007
So far this year, sales in the Charlottesville area are 17% lower than the pace set in 2006. Every individual area is lower as well– Albemarle -8%, Charlottesville -37%, Fluvanna -12%, Greene -37%, Nelson -21%
The most interesting thing to me is not the drop in sales, but the change in the median home price. The median home price for the entire area is down 1%.
The area median is being held down by Albemarle and Nelson Counties. The median home price in Albemarle has dropped 10% so far this year ($301,545 v. $336,718). The median in Nelson has dropped 15% ($260,000 v. $307,500). No matter how you look at it, that is significant. Albemarle has historically been a stellar performer in the area.
It is especially significant in light of the fact that the median for the year has increased in every other area– Charlottesville +11%, Fluvanna +10%, Greene +7%.
It will be interesting to monitor the median price as the year goes on. I fully expected overall sales to be lower this year, but if the median price drops, that would most certainly be headline-grabbing news.
[tags] real estate, realtor, charlottesville, virginia, home sales, housing statistics [/tags]
Meet The Builder and Register to Win a $100 Best Buy Giftcard
June 14, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Join me on Saturday, June 16th, from Noon-3pm at Zion Springs for our meet the builder open house. Tony Wilson of Ovation Builders will be there to answer your questions about the homes and the neighborhood. Tony is a really nice guy, and a great builder to boot! You are sure to learn something from him. And even if you don’t. . .
As an added bonus, everyone who attends can register for a chance to win a $100 Best Buy Giftcard just in time for Father’s Day.
For more information about the event and Zion Springs, visit www.ZionSpringsLane.com.
Launching Another RE.net Blog
June 12, 2007 | 1 Comment
In case you were wondering about the lack of activity here at the Zebra, I have been working on some real estate business projects unrelated to the blog. Well not entirely, since one of them is actually another blog:
StrongTeamProperties.com is more of a corporate-style blog than the Zebra. One of the benefits to being an independent real estate brokerage is that we can pretty much do whatever the heck we want to. When we have an idea that we think will be beneficial to your clients and customers, we can implement it immediately. No bureaucratic or corporate red tape to struggle through. Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t any spirited discussion, but at least it’s productive discussion.
We have been grappling for quite some time with finding the most effective ways to not only promote our company, services, and listings, but also how to communicate with clients and customers generally. Sure, we have all of the standard Internet trappings required to operate a real estate brokerage in today’s market, but we have always taken pride in trying to be as innovative as possible in our market area. This is where StrongTeamProperties.com comes in.
StrongTeamProperties.com will function as a connection between us as a brokerage and our clients and customers. We will use it to promote our listings, promote open houses, news about the brokerage, and include all of the other content people are accustomed to seeing on a blog. The way we see it, this site has quite a few advantages:
1) Clients and customers can subscribe to it via RSS or email. This means that they can be kept up-to-date on all of the real estate information that is important to them, plus, they will find out about our listings instantaneously in a format that is a bit more customer-friendly.
2) Subscriptions and the blog format allow us to be high-touch. Now, we will have many more opportunities to communicate with our clients and customers. Our static websites, as effective as they may be on their own, just sit there. Being a blog format, StrongTeamProperties.com will offer a much more dynamic experience for clients and customers.
3) Clients and customers can communicate with each other. This is a big one, perhaps the most important feature of the site. The nature of blogs is that people visit them and leave comments, questions, etc. The more people that do this, the more others can interact and thereby learn new things and share different experiences. We think this will be a major benefit to our clients and customers. StrongTeamProperties.com will be a place where they can learn from each other just as much as they learn from us. Hopefully, it will also be a place where they can share their positive experiences with others as well.
So there you have it. Yet another blog added to the RE.net. It is our intention that it will become a real estate community for the Charlottesville Area. Our area is one that is woefully under-served when it comes to client/customer oriented real estate websites. We hope to fill that void with something that people can truly utilize and enjoy.
So click on over and check out StrongTeamProperties.com. So far, I have only uploaded one of our listings, but more are sure to follow, along with announcements about upcoming open houses and events, and plenty of the high-quality real estate information and analysis that you have come to expect from the Zebra.
Don’t worry, the Zebra won’t change. StrongTeamProperties.com has a different focus and purpose than the Zebra, so bookmark and subscribe to them both, and you can have the best of all worlds!
[tags] real estate, realtor, charlottesville, virginia, re.net, blogs, blogging [/tags]
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Disclaimer
My name is Daniel Rothamel. I am a licensed real estate agent in the Commonwealth of Virginia and a member of the National Association of REALTORS. As such, I adhere to a strict code of ethics and all laws with regard to equal housing, which is reflected in the content of this blog. My broker is Strong Team REALTORS, 86 Joshua Lane, Palmyra, VA 22963; (434) 589-5800. My VA Real Estate License number is 0225 077325. All of the opinions in this blog are mine, unless otherwise noted.
