Northern Virginia's (that incl. Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church) homes sales in September might have been one of the best ever months year-to-date. However, for the first time since the peak, September home sales price breaks 2004 level.
click on image for larger view
While sales price down 23% from a year ago, the total number of units sold up 53.92% within the same period from 1,072 units to 1.650 units last month. On a year-to-date basis, this year's total number of units sold still have a deficit of 15.91% from 14,655 to 13,513 homes sold.
Price really took a hair cut. YTD sales price is down 13.79% from $541,146 to $465,891. That means: There were more homes under $500k sold this year!
The average sales price declined 23% from $529,278 to $407,748 while median sales price also follow the same declining trend from $440,000 to $348,250 or -20.85%.
Current market conditions
| Status as of 9/30/08 report | |
| Active listings | 9112 |
| Under contracts | 1777 |
| Sold | 1650 |
| DOM | 93 days |
data: MRIS
TRENDS
Foreclosure sales
According to MRIS data, there were 215 foreclosure (tagged) sales or 13% of September Northern Virginia's home sales. With additional 6 home sales under 'short-sale.' YTD there were 1,378 foreclosure homes sold or about 10% of the total homes sold.
Financing
See the trend below. FHA and VA made up more than 50% of all sales transactions last month which was quite a jump from a year ago.
| Financing | 2007 | 2008 |
| Conventional | 935 | 890 |
| FHA | 12 | 452 |
| VA | 15 | 94 |
| Cash | 53 | 125 |
| Assumption | 33 | 72 |
This financing trends does tell a couple of things:
- half of the transactions are homes priced under the FHA and VA loan limits,
- higher number of lower priced homes sold drags down the average sales price, and
- more first-time buyers jumped in the game.
To sum it up, price corrections does show that it creates buying opportunities.
data: NVAR and MRIS
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UPDATE-1: Over in some hoods, prices already break $100K support level.. [read post]
UPDATE-2: Housing prices shows similar trend nationwide..
