The folks over at CAAR (the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors) always do their best to make things sound rosy in their quarterly reports on the state of the local real estate market. Still, it’s been impossible to miss the grim tone in recent reports. Today, the first-quarter report for 2009 is out (read it here), and the takeaway this time seems to be "Things are a little better than awful."
Specifics? Well, sales are off by a third since the first quarter of 2008. In the city of Charlottesville, they’re down 40 percent, and in Louisa, almost 60 percent. Ouch. Median prices are down $21,500, or nearly 8 percent, and if you’re unlucky enough to be selling a house in Fluvanna you’ll be displeased to know that that county’s median has dropped by 17.2 percent. (Greene and Nelson saw price increases, though.) The median home price in Albemarle is now $290,000, and in Charlottesville it’s $262,810.
If you put your house on the market, how long will it take to sell? No one knows for sure, but the average Days on Market in Albemarle is 113, and in Charlottesville it’s a hefty 167. This is partly due to buyers having a ton of properties to choose from—3,608 total in CAAR’s market area, according to the report.
Look at where other voices in the local real estate scene, like Jim Duncan and the Bubble Blog, weigh in with their own takes on the CAAR report. And if you’re not looking to sell, thank your lucky stars.
