With the information I put together earlier this week showing that in the waterfront residential market there are numerous segments that are really improving this year....I thought, well how are we doing in the overall? That is what brought me to put together the nice snapshot shown below. And it really does tell us something. It tells me a lot. (If you are just checking this web site's statistics after a week or so, it really would be worthwhile to look at the post that just precedes this one. It gives a breakout of waterfront residential sales at $100,000 increments....for most of that market.)
The numbers in the three charts below are for the four counties of the Northern Neck--Westmoreland, Northumberland, Lancaster and Richmond.
Sales all residential 1/1 through 8/12
| |
2014 |
2015 |
2016 |
Active |
| # sold |
232 |
277 |
320 |
803 |
| $ sold (millions) |
62.2 |
86.5 |
85.6 |
334.5 |
| Median sales price |
198,000 |
250,000 |
220,000 |
324,900 |
| Median days on market |
226 |
163 |
212.5 |
148 |
Looking at the 2016 sales numbers you might say, wow, what an improving market. The difference between 277 residences sold in 2015 and 320 in 2016 is considerable....43 more houses (interestingly that is almost exactly the number the market improved from 2014 to 2015 with far more dollars in 2015 looking at 2014 dollars....but that's not what we are really looking at here). Great, more sales!!! But wait a minute....what is this?.....fewer dollars total for this larger number of sales ($86.5 million in 2015 and $85.6 million in 2016). That isn't what you'd expect with 43 more sales in 2016.
This set of numbers supports what we saw in waterfront residential recently. It shows that in the rest of the market (anything non waterfront including water access and water view) there is a high percentage of sales at lower price points. We've also increased the median days on market for these sales. 2016 is not a bad market but it also isn't a really improved one, unless the goal is decreasing inventory. We are certainly doing just that, but most significantly for the lower priced properties.
Sales all land 1/1 through 8/12
| |
2014 |
2015 |
2016 |
Active |
| # sold |
89 |
78 |
58 |
947* |
| $ sold (millions) |
11.2 |
8.0 |
6.6 |
142.8 |
| Median sales price |
94,000 |
53,500 |
42,700 |
79,000 |
| Median days on market |
168 |
268 |
206.5 |
372 |
This is a pretty straight forward set of information. Fewer sales, fewer dollars, lower median sales price and the only improvement is that median days on market for 2016 are lower than those in 2015. Lots and lots and lots of inventory. Median days on market for the active inventory is over a year.
*Property on the market longest at this moment has been on for 4061 days. No kidding!!
Sales waterfront land 1/1 through 8/12
| |
2014 |
2015 |
2016 |
Active |
| # sold |
40 |
30 |
18 |
454 |
| $ sold (millions) |
8.0 |
4.7 |
3.1 |
113.7 |
| Median sales price |
187,500 |
122,500 |
101,300 |
169,250 |
| Median days on market |
225 |
295 |
296 |
360.5 |
Hmmmm. Waterfront sales are hurting. Look at the numbers from 2014 through 2016. Drop in number of solds. Drop in dollars sold. Drop in median sales price. Slight increase in median days on market.....and wow, 18 sold in 2016 and 454 active at the moment.
This is a nice snapshot of the market. Helpful to see that there are the positives and the negatives. There is no real generalization that applies to the residential market. Land, though, is certainly very challenged. (Kathryn Murray, broker)
