Media Catching on to Market Change? Nope.

This week in real estate news brought an announcement from the National Association of Realtors that pending home sales were up nationally for the second month in a row. The Virginia Association of Realtor’s latest batch of numbers showed that the median home price had increased 7.8% from the prior quarter. Wow, rising prices, uptick in listings sold? These are the things that need to happen for the housing market to recover, folks. As long as we don’t see a bunch of new listings from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s decision to end the moratorium on foreclosures, we may very well see this market moving in a positive direction. The mainstream media, however, largely ignored the NAR announcement….

Loudoun County had 83 new listings come on market last week, with 76 listings absorbed. Again, the majority of the activity, with 15 new listings and 23 listings absorbed, took place in the 20164 zip code in Sterling. Outside of that one zip code, the lowest median price in any zip code in the county was $484,735 in 20180, which is Lovettsville. The most expensive zip code? At a median price of $846,827, is Middleburg, the 20117 zip code.

Here’s what caught my eye in this week’s charts… Single family home median prices continue to be steady everywhere but Purcellville, where they are still sliding down a little. Hopefully the western part of the county will soon turn to match pace with the eastern part. Sterling, though, is seeing some gain in median price as the market remains very busy there. Condo/townhome prices are remaining flat in Leesburg and Sterling, while dropping in Ashburn. Not sure why this is the case in Ashburn, whether it has to do with the number  of bank owned listings bringing it down? We’ll have to watch to see if that trend continues.  Purcellville, meanwhile, has seen a big jump upward, which means that there were probably more listings selling in the Purcellville Ridge community (the two car garage, Toll Brothers built homes on the right as you come into town) instead of the lower priced, older townhomes. The low volume for sales of condos/townhomes in Purcellville means that a few transactions can cause a big swing in the median price there.

For average days on market, it’s clear on the single family homes chart that we are seeing a dip across the county after having a jump up in late March/ early April.  Overall the average is a little higher than it was back in the winter. For condos and townhomes, though, we see a wide disparity in towns: Purcellville’s drop can be attributed to severely low inventory. Ashburn’s uptick matches up with the decline in median price (prices coming down as homes sit on the market longer). Sterling, with the busier market, is showing a decline in days on market, while Leesburg seems to be holding steady for the last month.

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Cheers,
Heather