It is time for the first edition of the Charlottesville area real estate statistics on The Real Estate Zebra. I wanted to make sure to continue to post the statistics because they are important. Since September is now behind us, I am posting statistics for the month of September, the 3rd Quarter of 2006, and the year-to-date. As always, the statistics cover the Charlottesville Metropolitan Statistical Area, and come from the sales as reported by the Charlottesville Area Association of REALTORS MLS. So here we go. . .
Sept. ‘06 Sept. ‘05 %Change
Albemarle 83 154 -46%
Charlottesville 27 37 -27%
Fluvanna 33 59 -44%
Greene 23 27 -15%
Nelson 15 39 -62%
Totals 181 316 -43%
3Q06 3Q05 %Change
Albemarle 466 571 -18%
Charlottesville 191 163 +15%
Fluvanna 149 190 -22%
Greene 66 92 -28%
Nelson 57 119 -52%
Totals 929 1135 -18%
YTD’06 YTD’05 %Change
Albemarle 1294 1570 -18%
Charlottesville 632 438 +31%
Fluvanna 417 505 -17%
Greene 232 238 -3%
Nelson 185 311 -41%
Totals 2760 3062 -10%
So there you have it. The Charlottesville area real estate market is only down 10% in total number of closed transactions as of the end of September. As I have said before, I think that the numbers are a little bit deceiving, in that they are being kept afloat by the number of condo sales in the City of Charlottesville. It will be interesting to see the performance over the rest of the year, since it would appear that those sales are starting to dwindle. This was the first month that the City has underperformed since I have been posting the statistics.
After compiling this information, I decided that I wanted to take a look at Days on Market (DOM). I then abandoned that strategy, since I know how easily the numbers can be manipulated, and I also know that the way they are tabulated leads to them being inaccurate. I just want to get a sense of the inventory on the market. One way of doing this is to do an “absorption rate.” An absorption rate is a statistic that shows how long it would take to sell every home in the existing inventory as long as no additional homes are added. Luckily for me, this is one of the statistics that our MLS provides; it even compares year-to-year. In order to compare 2005 to 2006, I chose the 30th as the inventory date. This meant that I would be looking at how long it would take to sell off the entire inventory of listed homes as of September 30th. The MLS displays this statistic in months, so 3.5 equals 3 1/2 months. What I found was not pretty:
2005 2006
Albemarle 3.71 12.41
Charlottesville 5.46 14.44
Fluvanna 4.20 10.52
Greene 5.44 8.09
Nelson 3.90 18.4
Totals 4.18 12.31
No matter how you look at it, this is a very sobering statistic. According to the MLS, it would take more than 12 months to sell off the current inventory. The lowest total is just over 8 months in Greene County. I knew that the current inventory was high, but the the MLS keeps this statistic going back to 2003, and it is has never even approached this height. In fact, if you exclude 2006, the longest absorption rate for the area is 6.88 months as of January 30th of 2004. All of this means that the market is more competitive than ever before, as the competition is greater, and the sales are fewer. Make sure that you are aware of this before you think about buying or selling your next home in the Charlottesville Area.
Technorati Tags: real estate, realtor, charlottesville, albemarle, fluvanna, greene, nelson, real estate market, home sales
{ 1 trackback }
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah, we’re all blowing 0.0 on the breathilizer these days, eh?
I think a silver lining, at least in two of the three markets I’m heavily into, Phoenix and San Diego, is that a large minority of the supply are folks that aren’t serious sellers. I wonder if it’s the same in your region. Just a thought.
[Reply]
Jeff,
That is a good observation. If by “not serious” you mean that their homes are grossly overpriced in a refusal to believe the current market conditions, then you would be correct. Unfortunately, many of those people need to sell their homes.
Actaully, much of the increased inventory in our area appears to be in the form of new construction that isn’t selling like it used to.
[Reply]
And that’s why shopping at the developer’s store is so much more fun these days.
They WILL sell their inventory because they ARE serious.
I just made three buys for a couple clients while visiting Boise and my team there. Brand new homes, never lived in, with over 1,500 square feet each. All for under $230K!
Life is good.
[Reply]