Starting 2021 With a Seller’s Market in Loudoun

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you are probably aware that it’s a seller’s market in Northern Virginia right now. I’ve been a Realtor since 2004 and these are easily the lowest inventory levels I can remember seeing. Every morning, I log into our multiple listing service to take a look at new listings, new prices, and such. As of this morning, in Loudoun County, we have 131 resale homes available. (I don’t count new construction listings because they typically represent models available in a community rather than specific homes.) Of those 131 homes, 16 were in ‘active adult’ – age restricted – communities. Another 35 were priced over $1 million.

That leaves 81 homes in the entire county for non-luxury price point buyers. Not a lot to choose from in any given segment:

• 15 condos, mostly priced in the $300s-$400s with a couple One Loudoun beauties above $500k
• 9 townhomes, mainly priced between $340-$475k with a couple newer, more expensive units.
• Single family homes: depending on the location you like, you might have a handful to pick from: 7 in Ashburn, 8 in Leesburg, 10 in Sterling, etc.

Loudoun County Inventory Report

You can click on it for more stats, or to drill down to zip codes you are interested in:

What if I want to buy in Loudoun this year?

Don’t be afraid. You can absolutely take advantage of the low interest rates even if our buying climate is challenging. Here’s how to make it work: choose your buyers agent, get your pre-approval letter, and put your agent to work for you. Yes, we would love to be your buyers agent. We have helped many, many clients prevail in multiple offer situations as well as helped clients get a jump on homes while they were in pre-listing or coming soon status. If you wait for an email alert from an aggregation site like Zillow or Realtor.com, you will have likely missed your opportunity. Depending on your price point and where you are looking, you can expect to face a multiple offer situation. We can help structure your offer to give it the best chance of being chosen.

If your work or life schedule doesn’t permit you to run out to see homes at the drop of a hat, don’t sweat it: we can easily do a private virtual showing that will let you walk through with us, ask questions, and take photos in real time as if you were in the home.

I’m thinking of selling, what do I need to know?

Congratulations, you’re in the driver’s seat! Because there are so few houses for sale right now, you can take advantage of the seller’s market to get your home sold for favorable terms. And your definition of favorable terms is up to you: closing date, rent back, and/or time to find your home of choice, for example. The best plan of action is to work with your listing agent to utilize coming soon marketing before you start allowing showings. This allows buyers and their agents to make plans to see the home as soon as it is available.

As listing agents, we ensure that all digital marketing (professional photography, 3D tours, floor plans, property website) is ready to go for the coming soon period. Your home will be a flurry of activity the first week it is on the market, and if priced appropriately should result in several offers. If you are trying to buy and sell at the same time in Loudoun, we wrote a post here that explains how we can work together to successfully coordinate that transition. We can talk through all the possibilities to help you accomplish your goals, but if you are looking to sell, this is a very good time to do so.

Curious what your home might sell for? You can reach out to us directly for a home valuation report, or you can get a value range by generating one automatically here.

How can I get started?

You can certainly set up and save searches for potential homes here on our site, which is a great way to get started if you are looking to buy. If you are a seller, those listings and recent sold homes can help you get a feel for what the market is doing. We would love to meet with you over the phone, via a zoom meeting, or in person, and hear about what kind of a move you are trying to make- buying, selling, or both. Knowledge is power, and so is having a strong agent to help guide the process and fight for your interests. We would love the opportunity to earn your business.

Cheers,
Heather