N. Va Resale Homes Sold Up 165% Since January, Sign of Market Turnaround?

image: Price vs. units sold

The Northern Virginia Association of Realtors (NVAR) released their June sales report recently for resale market. This is what interesting: The total number of homes sold year-to-date up almost doubled from 716 to 1,900 homes. That's a cool 165% increase over the past 6 months! 

How can anyone miss that?

For the same period, the average sold price declined by 14.44% from $569,826 to $487,549. Clearly, when you link the two indicators together - prices and units sold - the increase in total number of homes sold has something to do with falling prices, even though prices stay flat since beginning of the year. The total number of units (or homes) sold declined 5.05% from 2,001 to 1900 homes.

The numbers also show that sellers (some of them) have come to terms with the reality of the market. The ave. sales price as percentage of list price came down from 95.71% to 93.31%. And the ave. list price for solds declined 12.24% from $595,372 to $522,512. What this trend tells basically prices have come down. From the peak, which was 2006, the average sold price have come down from $578,689 to $487,549 or 15.74%. (2005 was not the peak of the market in terms of prices - only units sold).

What we've been hearing about FHA loans slowly become serious player in the marketplace is so true. Look at the market share. FHA, VA (other than conventional financing) takes bigger chunk of market share.

Market Trends: Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax

(The charts below shows you the movement between prices and volume or (total number of units) sold from June 2007 to June 2008.)

When you compare trends for Northern Virginia vs other jurisdictions, you can see that all real estate is local. Look at Arlington. What's going on there? It could be that during the month of February to March and April, there was low supply of homes in the upper bracket.

Alexandria tells a different story. Over a year period, home prices here stay flat while units sold almost double from under 100 homes sold in January of '08 to almost 200 homes in June. Buyers took advantage 'of closer-in' affordable homes in the City of Alexandria (less pricey than Arlington).

Fairfax county. It looks like this is where the action is. Buyers suddenly took advantage of some 'deals' on the market - which is a combination of foreclosures (bank-owned), short sale and other type of deals -  even though prices not coming down that fast and furious.

** data, information: MRIS, NVAR

** Northern Virginia includes Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Falls Church City, Town of Vienna. The stats exclude Loudoun and PW counties.