The numbers are out for July and it shows a very mixed bag! This is the first time there's been this sharp a difference between counties. Typically each of the counties have been trending in the same direction. But that's not true at all this month. We've got good news for some of you!

Fauquier County seems to be showing the biggest positive change. The best news is that the number of listings dropped from 865 to 805. The number of new listings added was lower. And the number of contracts written went from 65 to 71. It's a small uptick, but it's good news. On the down side, the number of solds actually fell from 65 in June to 58 in July. The change is good. It's too soon to tell whether it's a trend or a blip! And I would take the surge in contracts with a grain of salt. Given what's going on in the mortgage markets it's likely some of those will fall out due to an inability to get financing.

Prince William county saw the same kind of drop in active listings from 5703 to 5621. And, again, number of contracts was up slightly, number of solds down. The number of new listings coming on the market was also down.

Culpeper and Rappahannock didn't fare as well. In Culpeper it's still all headed in the wrong direction. The numbers on both active and new listings jumped. There are now 803 active listings in Culpeper, up from 784 last month. That's a new all time high. We added 145 new listings, up from 113 the previous month. While the number of solds went from 31 to 40 the number of new contracts written fell from 47 to 39. Culpeper continues to take the hardest hit in this market.

Rappahannock County always marches to its own drummer, but even they're feeling some pain this year. The number of active listings is at 83, a small number compared to neighboring counties, but a new high for Rappahannock. 14 new listings came on the market, down by 2 from the previous month. But zero contracts were written! That's a first since I've been tracking the numbers. Closed sales remained at a pretty average 3 for July.

The numbers are definitely showing a mixed picture but I hesitate to call anything a trend with only one month's data. We'll hope for good things for all the counties in August!

So yesterday I got an e-mail advertisement for a listing in Hyattsville, Maryland. The home is a brick colonial on a 5000sf lot with an attached garage. It has 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths and, as far as I can tell seems to be in decent shape. The listing says there are hardwood floors under the carpet. The house has a full, walk out basement. The house is listed for $399,900.

For those of you who don't know Maryland geography, this is within 5 miles of the MD/DC border and very near a metro station.

I wanted to compare what you get for your money here. I looked at homes in Fauquier County priced between $395,000 and $405,000 First of all, there are only four detached homes in Fauquier County that meet these criteria. Two are in Bealeton and two are in Warrenton. Two of the homes are four years old, one is 13 years old and one is 98 years old. They have either three or four bedrooms. Three out of the four have lots of about 10,000sf. One is roughly 20,000sf.

There is no doubt at all that the homes in Fauquier County are larger with larger lots. In three quarters of the cases they're much newer. But I seriously wonder how many people are going to want to make the several hours a day commute into northern VA/DC for the extra house and lot space they would gain.

And that's a big part of our problem in the current environment. Make no mistake; most of the people who have been buying homes in Fauquier County over the last 10 years have been commuters. Right now, we have a product that's not competitive. Long commute time, no mass transit, crowded roads and expensive gas make the decision between here and Hyattsville a no-brainer for a lot of families.

Part of the key to getting us out of our current housing market slump is to fix this problem. It's going to be tough to deal with the commute time, gas prices and road congestion. Guess what that leaves us to work with? Can anybody say price???

Generally I've been creating a seperate post each month for the updated numbers for each county. But since the changes are very slight I'm incorporating them all into one post this month. I'm sure you're tired of reading several posts in a row each month with those ugly numbers!

The one note I'll make this month is that almost across the board we're seeing a leveling off of new inventory. That's not big news because you'd expect that to start showing up mid-summer. But it seems like it may be happening a few weeks earlier than usual. It's too early to make definitive statements on that with only one month's data to support that premise. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from the rest of the numbers!

I'll also go out on a limb and predict that we're going to see a leveling off and probably a dip in the new contracts within a couple of months. It'd be nice to see a corresponding dip in inventory!

Culpeper County June Market Stats

Fauquier County June Market Stats

MONTH	ACTIVE	NEW LISTINGS	NEW CONTRACTS	SOLD
02/06	489	149	64	54
03/06	610	296	91	61
04/06	692	254	94	77
05/06	732	237	107	87
06/06	781	218	78	90
07/06	816	190	62	54
08/06	823	206	79	79
09/06	794	162	62	61
10/06	821	197	51	55
11/06	723	105	59	44
12/06	643	71	36	54
Today we spotlight the May market data for Fauquier County, Virginia. Try as I might I'm barely able to find a bright spot in this mess. True, the new listings hitting the market are slightly down. Very slightly! And inventory jumped again and now is at it's highest point since the market shifted. We're looking at about 16 months to absorb current inventory. The bottom line here is that it may be true, as some have reported, that the market has bottomed out. But there's surely no way to know that from these numbers. Like all of you I'm wildly hopeful that we've reached bottom. If any one sees something to inspire more optimism here I'm all ears! MONTH ACTIVE NEW LISTINGS NEW CONTRACTS SOLD 02/06 489 149 64 54 03/06 610 296 91 61 04/06 692 254 94 77 05/06 732 237 107 87 06/06 781 218 78 90 07/06 816 190 62 54 08/06 823 206 79 79 09/06 794 162 62 61 10/06 821 197 51 55 11/06 723 105 59 44 12/06 643 71 36 54 01/07 656 171 60 42 02/07 676 135 71 53 03/07 723 212 94 62 04/07 804 217 66 68 05/07 867 206 53 55 Permanent Link | Comments (0) | Write a Comment | Send Link Low Birth Rates May. 29, 2007 Categorized in: Local Market Conditions Tagged with: culpeper county market conditions, fauquier county market conditions, first time home buyers, housing market demographics This weekend I was catching up on some reading and picked up an industry publication. It had an article by a broker in Illinois who made a case for a new root cause of the current housing market downturn. Since I hadn't heard this particular hypothesis I thought I'd share it with you! Apparently in 1973 a whole lot of people didn't have babies! There were fewer babies born that year than any other year since World War II. That's 34 years ago. The average age of a first time home buyer today is 33. Voila! A year ago the housing market slowed as we hit a drought of first time home buyers. The author makes the case that this pattern was also responsible for the last major downturn starting in 1989. Home sales declined for three consecutive years. As it happened at the time the average age of a first time home buyer was 25. And, as it happened, birth rates  declined beginning in 1964. If that really is the major factor in today's slower market, the author says it will be four years before the cycle begins to move back up. That will be when we begin to see the "echo boomers" look to buy their first homes. There's enough data here to intrigue me. And I'll be looking at demographics again over the next few weeks to see what other support I see for her theory. In all honesty, though, I certainly hope she's wrong! So, has anyone else heard this theory? Have any major economists bought into this? Obviously if it is true a lot of us will need to rethink a lot of our assumptions! Permanent Link | Comments (0) | Write a Comment | Send Link What Will It Take? May. 14, 2007 Categorized in: Local Market Conditions Tagged with: culpeper county market conditions, fauquier county market conditions Tonight a client asked me what I thought it would take to get the market moving again in this area. Here is my list of what it will take to change current market conditions. 1. Lower gas prices Gas prices are clearly playing a role. They played a dramatic role in slowing the market, initially and they're still a drag. The vast majority of people who are moving into this area are commuting into Northern VA and DC. If gas prices suddenly dropped by, say, 25 cents, I'd be willing to bet you'd see a jump in activity almost immediately! Unfortunately, I have to say I don't see that happening any time soon. 2. Lower interest rates While interest rates are already historically low, an additional drop would likely move some fence sitters to jump in now. If enough of them jump you get a lot of other buyers who were waiting for a sign that it's the right time. I don't see any interest rate cuts in our future, but I'd bet on this before I'd bet on lower gas prices! 3. Large reduction in inventory I believe this one will occur, it just won't happen overnight. Over the course of the next six months, you'll see inventory fall. The faster it falls, the better for the overall market. But there are still way too many people with houses for sale who don't really need to sell now. If you've got no reason to sell this year rather than next...wait! 4. Large price drop If sellers drop their prices enough, buyers will start to jump on the bargains. Right now we've got a standoff going on. Buyers still think prices are too high and sellers have dug in their heels and declared their not going any lower. In this kind of standoff, in my opinion, sellers always ultimately lose. That may not be true on an individual basis, but if you look at the larger market over time, it's true. Generally, sellers need to sell more than buyers need to buy. 5. A huge influx of new buyers I don't know where they might be hiding, but this would definitely jump start the market. If you saw a major employer announce 100 new, high paying jobs locally, I believe it would have a pretty quick influence on the local real estate market. I've given you some of my impressions of how likely I think these things are. What do you think? What other factors do you see that could change the market that I've missed? Permanent Link | Comments (0) | Write a Comment | Send Link April Market Numbers May. 11, 2007 Categorized in: Local Market Conditions Tagged with: culpeper county market conditions, fauquier county market conditions, rappahannock county The April numbers are out and they're not pretty! Here's a snap shot for the local five county area. APRIL MARKET STATISTICS   COUNTY # ACTIVE NEW LISTINGS NEW CONTRACTS SOLD Culpeper 740 211 53 32 Fauquier 804 217 66 68 Prince William 5073 1668 471 427 Rappahannock 81 22 3 3 Warren 613 159 52 34 These numbers by themselves don't reveal the entire story. The really bad news here is that inventory jumped substantially, across the board. In every jurisdiction we're very near our all time high for inventory. New contracts and solds revealed very little improvement. In fact, in Culpeper County solds dropped pretty dramatically. And year over year numbers look pretty dismal. Sorry sellers, but there is absolutely no good news to be found here. I'll say it again. (And I know I sound like a broken record!) There is no way to change this market without substantial price drops from sellers! Two other possibilities for salvation exist, but they seem like a long shot to me. One is that over half of current inventory gets taken off the market. Given that the trend is in entirely the opposite direction I wouldn't count on that. And, there are truly some people who must sell. I think at one time we had enough sellers who just hoped to sell that they could have all taken their homes off the market and it would have made a difference. Now I don't believe that's the case. The other possibility is that hoards of buyers come out of the woodwork, ready to buy. While I do think there's some pent up demand out there. And there are some smart buyers who are aggressively negotiating good deals ahead of the pack. But the vast majority of buyers will wait until everyone else jumps. It appears human nature is to follow the herd! Culpeper still looks worse than the other counties and I still believe it's because of the rate of appreciation there as well as the impact of gas prices. Most of the peope who bought homes there were commuters into Northern VA and DC. The trade off of longer commute for more house is looking less attractive now! If you'd like to look at the big picture you can go back to my earlier blogs on market statistics over the last year by county. They can be found under the category Local Market Conditions. I'm interested to hear your thoughts as buyers, sellers and real estate agents about what you're seeing in the market. Do these statistics match up with your experiences? Permanent Link | Comments (2) | Write a Comment | Send Link