Despite a drop in sales during the month of October as compared to the summer and early fall months, the local real estate market is doing better than it was at this point in 2010, as recorded by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service. The total residential sales of 84 units was a significant drop from the 100+ unit monthly totals from June – September. However, these 84 units easily surpassed October, 2010’s anemic 68 units.
As we said last month, the most significant chart in this report is the Year Over Year Change in Residential Units Sold. The chart shows sales this year are 23 units ahead of last year’s sales through the end of October. If the current outpacing of last year’s sales continues through December, it will reverse the trend of declining sales in each of the past five years (2005 – 2010). The cumulative effects of this trend are astounding – the year to date total of 942 units is 896 units fewer than the first ten month’s sales in 2004, a 49% drop! The reversal of this continually declining trend is a key indicator our market is stabilizing, and gives some hope of a recovery in the next year or two is possible.
One important trend which has not yet reversed is the average and median prices of homes sold in the past 12 months. The average and median figures continue to decline slowly, dropping to $188,421 and $167,000 respectively. As of the end of October, the one and three year changes in sales prices for residential units in the HRAR MLS are:
Three year change: Average Price down -13.94%, Median Price down -13.07%
One year change: Average Price down -5.23%, Median Price down -4.51%
Days on market for homes sold in the past 12 months actually dropped by one day in October to 215. Since inventory has remained lower than last year and the pace of sales is a bit better, it could be possible for us to see the DOM begin to go down, but most likely this change is temporary.
Our market appears to be stabilizing in terms of the pace of sales, but prices aren’t quite there yet. As sales increase, upward pressure will be placed on pricing until we finally see the sales prices being to rise, hopefully by next summer.
Click here to view or download our Market Activity Charts for October, 2011.
This original blog post can be found by clicking here
Comments(0)