A recent lunch with a banker friend got me curious about current prices per square foot in specific local subdivisions. Apparently a builder had recently told my friend that he couldn't build a house (including land acquisition costs) for as little as the current price per square foot on existing homes. If you're a builder, that's trouble!

So, I'm going to do a series of posts, not necessarily sequential, looking at several subdivisions in a local area and what the average sale price per square foot looks like.

First I should define a few things. I'm looking at specific subdivisions because they are more uniform. It's easier to make comparisons without having to factor out the amount of land. They are usually built at about the same time. All in all, they are more likely to result in more accurate comparisons.

The sale price that I'm using is the sold price as taken from the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) minus any money paid by the seller to help with closing costs. So, it's a net sales price.

The square footage information is taken from the tax records. That means that occasionally the square footage is going to be inaccurate if, say, a homeowner finished the basement without getting the proper permits.

All that said, let's take a look at three subdivisions in the Amissville and Jeffersonton area.

South Wales had the largest volume of sales of the subdivisions I looked at with five sales since 1/1/2008. The average price per square foot of the homes sold is $118.89.

Quail Ridge had four homes sold. The average price per square foot there is $110.50.

Wildwood Forest showed only two homes. That makes the data more suspect here as the two homes had enough differences that I don't view this number as very useful. But, for what it's worth, the price per square foot, on average, was $125.91.

I wanted to look at two additional subdivisions in this area, Deerfield and Erinbrook, but there weren't even two sales in either of these (at least per the MLS).

If you live in the Amissville or Jeffersonton area and have a home for sale, you might consider taking a look at how your home compares with these numbers. Is it time for a price reduction?

If your a buyer, keep these numbers in mind as you look for the house you want, then compare the listing price to these numbers.

Quail Ridge is a subdivision in Amissville in the northwest corner of Culpeper County. You'll find just about every style of home here, set on large lots of 2+ acres. There are approximately 250 homes in this subdivision, making it one of the larger communities in the area, and certainly the largest in Amissville.

There are four properties for sale in this subdivision. Prices range from $409,000 to $469,000. Days on market ranges from 89 days to 331 days. As it happens, all four properties currently for sale are colonials. There are no properties currently under contract here.

Nine properties have sold here in the last year. Which means there's currently a roughly six month's supply of inventory. That's lower than the area average of approximately 12 months.

Of the nine properties that sold, the lowest priced property sold for $374,000 and the highest priced property sold for $503,000. These are net prices after any seller concessions to help with buyer closing costs. Looking at prices in the abstract is actually less useful in this subdivision since there's so much variety in the homes here. Among those nine were a split foyer, a very small rambler and a very large three level colonial. What I would be willing to bet on is that we don't see another sale for anything over $500K in 2007.

Nothing has sold in this subdivision since December of 2006. That may mean that there's actually more than a six month's supply of inventory. That's especially true since the traditionally more active spring market has so far largely failed to materialize.

There were 9 homes over the last year that were either withdrawn from the market or whose listings expired. Three of them are currently for sale again. One of them sold eventually. And four of the sellers appear to have given up for the time being.

While the details change with each subdivision the overall message in the market stays the same. It's a tough market for sellers and only the seriously motivated have a chance at selling. It remains a great opportunity for buyers!