How’s the Market?
Because so many of us invest, have invested, or hope to invest in housing, this is a question that everyone seems to be talking about right now. Being even less of an expert/prophet than many are, I still would like to venture a few thoughts. If you’re thinking Virginia housing, Virginia, with strong job growth and low unemployment, is better prepared to rebound than many areas. Median prices on homes still increased in 2007 although at a slower rate than in 2006. The good news for buyers is that right now increasing inventory is driving prices down. The good news for sellers (in Richmond anyway) is that the average days on market (DOM in real estate speak) increased from 70 in 2006 to 88 in 2007. Which means in the overall picture, homes for sale are not sitting around that long! Nationwide, according to a Real Trends survey, 63% of real estate brokers are seeing improvement in the marketplace. And they think the reason more areas are not seeing improvement is (at least in part) because of “consumer hesitation driven by alarmist media reporting.” No doubt this is a complicated economic issue. But beware! Not all the news is bad news.