I don't know about your area, but when the local newspaper or radio/tv does a piece on the local real estate market in Virginia Beach I cringe a little bit. When you have some knowledge about a particular subject you realize how they miss the boat to varying degrees.
For example the local paper, The Va-Pilot, (which covers Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Suffolk and Portsmouth and surrounding areas of Va) had a recent article about the status of the local real estate market. The headlines screamed of gloom and doom, the sky is falling, which is enough to scare the dickens out of headline readers. The article itself was a little more balanced and reflected somewhat the reality of the market.
The reality, that they reflected to some degree, is that the market has slowed down from the 2002-2005 boom of multiple offers within days and the "feeding frenzy" and the new stategy that was necessary to compete for homes for you buyers, and the 10-20 percent + appreciation....to a market that has a respectable increase of 4% so far this year (that comes close to how our stable market has historically been before the boom of 2002-2005.)
Yes, it is very much a buyers market with homes staying on the market for months, too many months, on average, and sellers having to give concessions to the buyers that were unheard of before, especially in new construction (that's another story in itself) but sellers are getting almost double what they paid just a few short years ago rather then double. Also the morgage industry--mostly sub prime---has had it's share of problems.
The market could be better and will be but it's never as the news media sometimes portrays it....or is this just me??!! It overly concerns buyers and sellers.
Jim from Va Beach
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