There are some mornings that I can’t help but hear my Nana singing Cat Stevens “Morning has broken…” This is one of those mornings.
Cheers,
Heather
Tags: LoCo Photo, Loudoun
Because the Loudoun County annual property tax assessments were just mailed, it’s probably a good time to take a look at whether your new assessed value matches up with the recent market data… Hop over to the post I just published at LoCoMarketStats.com that has the charts with the most up to date information:
Are you thinking about selling this spring? Or do you just want to make sure that your new property tax assessment matches up with market value? This should help: here’s the data for single family homes in Loudoun. If you want information targeted directly to your home and neighborhood, click here to schedule a consultation or sign up for an emailed market report.
Cheers,
Heather
Tags: LoCo, Loudoun County, Real Estate, tax assessment
Bear with me today, I’m going to take a detour from our regularly scheduled programming, because this struck a nerve. Yesterday afternoon, my husband and I received the following email from our daughters’ elementary school:
In keeping with current practices designed to protect the health and safety of all children, elementary students in Loudoun County Public Schools are not permitted to distribute candy or other food items to classmates. As Valentine’s Day approaches, it is important for parents to understand that candy brought to school by students, including candy attached to Valentine’s Day cards, will be returned to the parent.
Perhaps it was this way last year, too, but I don’t recall getting a strongly worded notice before the holiday. My reaction was “are you kidding me?!” followed with wondering if there was anything I could do to change this. Or at least make my voice heard.
Trust me, I understand that the intent behind this is to protect the students that have food allergies…but as parents we are informed at the beginning of the year if our child is in a classroom with a student that needs to be protected. In our tight knit community, I’m sure we could handle sending in appropriate treats that wouldn’t be a danger. (We manage to make it through lunch every day without incident.)
The candy at Valentine’s day issue is not the whole problem, unfortunately. We can’t send in treats for our child’s birthday. We can’t have a Christmas party, it’s a holiday party. The Halloween parade in the school is now a ‘spirit parade’ with themed costumes… (I think my middle schoolers dressed up as “math nerds”?) Most disturbing to me is that the time honored tradition of Field Day now awards ‘participation ribbons’. There is no first, second, or third place. On American Education Week, we are ‘strongly encouraged’ to show up at pre-assigned times for scheduled performances…just dropping in to observe our child’s classroom in action would be too disruptive, and is discouraged.
I don’t think that school administrators or school boards have malicious intent, but they have stripped so much of the fun of childhood out of the elementary school experience. I can promise you that my life wasn’t ruined, nor did I need therapy, when I didn’t win first prize in the water balloon toss. I sure as hell remember getting first place in the three -legged race, though, and those ribbons are in my scrapbook. And I remember my class parties from elementary school…we all knew what it meant if a boy gave you a small box of chocolates instead of a lollipop with your card! (The teasing was good natured, I assure you!)
Each of these smaller policies are not such a big deal when taken individually, but add them all together and we’ve chipped away at the experience that helps shape these little people into who they will become as adults. At what point do we stand up and say, enough already?
~Heather
Tags: Ashburn, education, Leesburg, Loudoun, Loudoun County Schools, Purcellville, Sterling
We’re almost to the spring market (anyone else noticed the confused forsythia bushes blooming around here?) so I thought we’d take a look at how far your money will stretch…with $500,000 to spend, how much house can you get in Loudoun County right now?
Inventory is slim pickin’s at the moment, with only 62 resale homes priced between $475,000 and $525,000. If that’s your ballpark range you can choose from:
- A restored 6 bedroom Queen Anne style Victorian with a wraparound porch…
- Several ready to move in foreclosed homes in good shape, dotted across the county…
- A large farmhouse on a (nearly) 28 acre lot …
- Your pick of two townhomes or five patio homes within the gates of different golf communities…
- A charming 200 year old period home in an historic community…
- A log home on a 10 acre lot overlooking a pond….
Plus numerous other properties…click through to see all of them:
Cheers,
Heather
Click here to set an appointment to view homes.
Showing properties
1 - 6 of 114.
See more What you can get for $500K in LoCo.
(all data current as of
1/27/2012)
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$525,000 : 46382 Bluestem Ct, Sterling5 beds, 3 full, 1 part baths
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$479,990 : 18 Summer Breeze Ct, Sterling4 beds, 2 full, 2 part baths
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$512,940 : 43251 Lecroy Cir, Leesburg6 beds, 5 full, 1 part baths
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$489,950 : 25637 Anthem Ter, Chantilly4 beds, 2 full, 1 part baths
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$499,845 : 43777 Bent Creek Ter, Leesburg3 beds, 3 full, 1 part baths
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$514,990 : 0 Belleville Dr, Leesburg4 beds, 2 full, 1 part baths
Listing information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Read full disclaimer.
CLICK HERE to set an appointment to view homes.
Tags: Ashburn, homes for sale, Leesburg, Loudoun County, Purcellville, Real Estate, Sterling
With the mild winter weather, the spring real estate market is already showing signs of life in Loudoun County. Buyers are out and about, beginning to check out what homes are available. Sellers are deciding on pricing and when to list their homes as active on the market. And everyone thinking about a move, whether as a buyer or a seller, is trying to gauge the market to see where it’s trending. If you are basing your thinking on the national news regarding the real estate market, you are going to have a problem this spring: Loudoun County is NOT a buyer’s market. In fact, it’s edging very close to a seller’s market right now.
(I’m going to give you a moment to digest that.)
Sure, we’ve seen some articles recently that talk about how strong and insulated the Washington DC metro area real estate market is, but I want to give it to you on a usable level…what’s happening in Montgomery and Prince George’s County (or heck, even Fauquier) doesn’t necessarily apply here. Looking at our absorption rate (the rate at which homes are selling) shows us that we have 3.9 months of inventory, and 3 months or less is a seller’s market.
Absorption rate is calculated by taking the number of active listings and dividing it by the number of homes that have gone under contract within the last 30 days. Six months or more is a buyer’s market, 3 to 6 months is a balanced market, and under 3 months is a seller’s market.
As of today, there are 1290 active listings, and 326 homes under contract in 30 days or less. That’s 3.95 months of inventory. (That matches with the most recent sales data from December, homes sold last month averaged just 69 days on market.) Now, that figure includes the new construction market. Some of those ‘active’ listings are just placeholder listings for models within communities: builders put in one active listing to represent all available lots with that model. So their listings tend to skew the data on active homes.
Looking strictly at the resale market, removing the new construction listings and contracts, there are only 893 homes for sale in ALL of Loudoun County right now. Resale contracts in the last 30 days total 254…which puts the resale absorption rate at 3.51 months of inventory. Even closer to a sellers’ market!
What does that mean for you? If you are thinking about buying this spring, be prepared…if inventory levels do not increase, we will continue to see homes going under contract quickly, with the potential for multiple offer situations. (Yes, we have been seeing this for the last couple of months!) Be prepared and organized when you are doing your home search so that you can act quickly when you decide you are ready to offer on a home.
As a seller? We are not going to see the run-up in pricing that accompanied the craziness of the market in 2004 and 2005. However, you can expect that if your home is priced appropriately and is prepared for showing and sale, you should be able to successfully sell within 3 to 4 months at the most.
Certainly, if everybody and their brother puts their home on the market next week and our inventory count goes drastically higher, that will affect our absorption rates for this spring. This is obviously an overview for all of LoCo; different price points, home types, and neighborhoods will have different situations. If you want to know how this applies specifically to your home and your neighborhood (or the neighborhood you are looking to move to) you can click here to schedule a consultation.
Cheers,
Heather
Median Home Price for Loudoun County
Tags: Loudoun County, Market Update, Real Estate
