From a Realtor’s Perspective…

So the dogwoods are starting to bloom, and you can’t see your breath in the morning…spring market is starting! I’m currently working with both sellers and buyers, so I’ve had the opportunity to view the market from both sides of the coin right now. From a seller’s standpoint, we are having lots of showings. Open house traffic continues to be steady and strong, even when Sundays have been cold, or rainy, or both.  Most folks are finding their way to the open houses from directional signs, but some have visited after seeing the open house information on Trulia.com or on the Redwood Realty site.

The buyers that I’m working with are having a tough time finding homes to see! When you see a home listed as ‘active’ in the multiple listing service, you expect it to be fully available, with no offers on it, don’t you?  Well, in reality, if it’s a ‘short sale’ property, it continues to show as ‘active’ until the lender approves a contract so that the owner can fully ratify it.  So there are actually less homes to pick from than you might think, and we aren’t seeing a huge jump in listings so far.  It’s not unusual for me to call a listing agent for a property that was listed in the last week or two to hear that they have already received several offers.  (It’s not causing bidding wars, or huge price increases, but it does mean buyers need to not hesitate if they fall in love with a house.)

For those of you who like to look at hard numbers and not anecdotal evidence, I’m putting together a market statistics blog that will give you a more in-depth look at what is happening with the market, tracking the inventory and median prices for Loudoun County as a whole, and individual zip codes and towns as well.  Look for an announcement here on LoCoMusings in the next week for that website’s launch!

Cheers,

Heather