Harrisonburg Real Estate Market Report - August, 2013

Click here to download Market Update charts for August 2013.




August 2013 has proven to be, by one home, the best month of the year for home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. According to the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Association of Realtors® Multiple Listing Service 109 homes sold in August, surpassing July’s total of 108. In fact, homes sales have averaged over 100 per month for the past five months – something that hasn’t happened since 2007, and the year-to-date total of 695 home sales is the best since 2007. Further encouraging news is contract activity remained strong in August, with Buyers placing contracts on 103 homes.

Home prices were steady in August, with the 12 month average of $197,603 slightly more than 2% higher than last year at this time. Although inventory has increased during the past few months, it is still significantly below prior years. This, combined with increased Buyer activity will cause prices to continue their slow increase into 2014. The one and three year trends in pricing are:

Three year change:    Average Price down -5.70%, Median Price down -3.48%
One year change:       Average Price up +2.18%, Median Price up +0.21%

The most dramatic change this month is the dropping “Days on Market”, now at 197 days, which indicates the average number of days the homes sold during the past 12 months were on the market (from listing date to settlement date). A higher percentage of homes are selling within 90 days than last year, and the percentage is going up. Through August 2012, 30.41% of the sales closed within 90 days of hitting the market. So far this year, that number is 35.82%, and in August is was 42.20%.

So, the takeaway this month is homes continue to sell more quickly, for higher prices and more homes sold in August than in any other month so far this year. Not bad….

Click here to view or download our Market Activity Charts for August 2013.

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