Loudoun County Market Snapshot, April 2008

Spent some time looking at what the market in Loudoun County has been doing for the last 30 day window, from today looking back. We had 1002 listings come on market, although 182 of those were listed previously.  For the 820 actual “new listings”, 112 of them went under contract in the last 30 days. Yes, 112 properties were listed and went under contract in the last 30 days. There were an additional 479 contracts written on other properties in the same 30 day period, for a total of 591 properties under contract in the last 30 days. The total number of active listings in Loudoun County right now is 3113 homes, which puts the absorption rate (the number of months it would take for the current inventory of homes to sell, at the rate at which they are going under contract) at 5.27 months.

Recap of the last 30 days:

1002 new listings – 182 relisted properties  = 820 actual “new listings”
Of those 820, 112 are already under contract. (think they were priced right? I do!)

Current active listings for the whole county: 3113
divided by the number of homes under contract: 591
Gives us a market absorption of 5.27 months.

An absorption rate of under three months is considered a sellers market, while an absorption rate of over six months is considered a buyer’s market. I would say that it’s still very much a buyer’s market in Loudoun County right now, but we are working our way slowly toward a balance.  I’ll be watching closely to see how the inventory level progresses as we move through the spring market and into the summer. Last year left us with a huge amount of unsold inventory at the end of the spring, which took months to absorb.  If we make it through the spring without abnormally high inventory levels, we could see some improvement through the rest of the year.  This is provided, of course, that we don’t see a huge uptick in the number of foreclosures hitting the market…those don’t follow our traditional selling seasons.

Cheers,

Heather