That's the title of the below article (or portion thereof) which was copied from an email I just received. This is from the Commonwealth Magazine which is the Virginia Association of Realtors' publication. This is obviously a reflection of all of Virginia and so it should be kept in perspective.
To show that all markets are truly local and behave in a specific way, I'm going to call each of the Building & Zoning departments in the five counties that we regularly review and see what they have to tell us about the Northern Neck and Essex so far this year. Along with it, I'll add the numbers associated with how well we are doing in total both in all residential, all waterfront residential (a subset, naturally) and all land versus the last two years. Wish our house market was on fire, but I think it is slowly glowing with a hope that it might take off.
There’s no denying that the housing market is on fire
20jul2015 Posted by Christine Hodges, Chief of Marketing & Communications
The US housing market is exploding. On Friday morning, Census Bureau data showed that housing starts surged 9.8% to an annualized pace of 1.174 million, a level not seen since July 2007.
Building permits, which indicate the pace of future construction, climbed 7.4% to an annualized pace of 1.343 million, also the highest level in about eight years.
“With a nearly 30% increase in housing starts compared to June of last year, the residential market recovery is here, and it is strong and sustainable,” said Peter Ciganik, managing director of GTIS Partners, in a note Friday.
“The increase is the result of a strong job market, rising consumer confidence, and a moderate and much needed improvement in the supply of mortgage cr edit.”
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Thus far I've had three counties tell me how many permits they've issued for stick built houses in their counties thus far this year. For Richmond County it is 4. For Essex county it is 17 and for Westmoreland county they've issued 26. Actually that is more than I expected given that I'm in Richmond county and realize it isn't exactly moving forward at warp speed. I'll let you know what Northumberland and Lancaster report back as soon as I hear.
In the meantime, here are the numbers.
This is for the four counties of the Northern Neck. Timeframe is January 1 through July 21st. First grouping is all residential. Second, is all waterfront residential (a subset). And finally all land.
All residential sales 1/1 through 7/21 (4 counties)
| |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
Active |
| # sold |
189 |
204 |
209 |
234 |
942 |
| $ sold (millions) |
50.5 |
59.8 |
55.6 |
74.2 |
389.7 |
| Median sales price |
200,000 |
210,000 |
180,000 |
250,000 |
309,425 |
| Median days on market |
180 |
216 |
219 |
181 |
142 |
The answer is yes, the market is improving. More sales (more than 10% increase over last year). Higher dollars. Higher median sales price and reduced median days on market.
Waterfront residential sales 1/1 through 7/21 (4 counties)
| |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
Active |
| # sold |
87 |
93 |
85 |
124 |
539 |
| $ sold (millions) |
34.8 |
43.3 |
38.4 |
58.8 |
305.9 |
| Median sales price |
350,000 |
380,000 |
370,000 |
378,750 |
449,000 |
| Median days on market |
199 |
307 |
266 |
212 |
143 |
The same is true for waterfront obviously, with more sales, higher sales numbers (almost 50% increase which is significant), higher median sales price and reduced median days on market.
All land sales 1/1 through 7/21 (4 counties)
| |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
Active |
| # sold |
64 |
56 |
79 |
68 |
955 |
| $ sold (millions) |
4.9 |
6.2 |
10.2 |
6.7 |
137.0 |
| Median sales price |
40,000 |
77,500 |
90,000 |
52,000 |
75,000 |
| Median days on market |
130.5 |
287.5 |
186 |
245.5 |
412 |
Reduced number of sales in comparison with 2014. Reduced dollars as well. 2015 is the strongest year with the exception of 2014 when we look at the last four years. Lots of inventory and that inventory has a lot of value. Lots of median days on market with that number 412.
