Price Reductions...Everywhere

The real estate website Trulia reports that sellers have cut $27.1 Billion off their asking prices. As the slow Spring selling season draws to a close, price reductions are proliferating in this area.

Below are just a few recent price reductions pulled from Trulia. You may search the area's properties, if listed on Trulia, by "Price Reduction" by selecting this in the menu on the left side of your screen. A local search may be conducted at RealCentralVA. The IDX function will give info on pricing history--but only if the MLS # has not been changed during a re-listing.

NOTE price per square foot. The CAAR mid-year report indicated: Average price of unsold homes is $203 compared to $143 for homes that have sold in the first 6 months of 2009.

705 Ingleside Lane MLS 466638 Reduced $250K, $1,645,000. $274 sq. ft.
Off Garth near Farmington.

3250 Barracks Road MLS 462661 Reduced $100K to $795K . $154 sq.ft.

1711 Solomon Road MLS 466301 Reduced $25,100 to $339K. $104 sq ft.
County close to City amenities.

620 Mockingbird Way MLS 462104 Reduced 30K to $249K, $171 sq. ft.

130 Observatory Ave MLS 465398 $395K from $449K (more than 1 reduction). $149 sq ft. Near Scott Stadium.

708 page st MLS 459841 $137.5K from $174,9K. $80 sq.ft $80. Sales are stalled and prices are dropping in the 10th & Page Street neighborhood; it never became the next Belmont.

1607 Farm Brook Place MLS 463913. Five price changes since April...started at $339K now down to $279K. $119 sq.ft.

Related Reading:
Homesellers Cut $27.1 Billion Off Listing Prices - Housing Wire
Housing Woes: Price Reductions Are Proliferating - Time
Median Home Prices Charlottesville MLS
Graphs: Declining RE Sales
CAAR's Mid-Year Market Report

Graph: Median Home Prices Charlottesville MLS 2001 - 2009

Below is a graph of median prices for all types of sales in the entire Charlottesville MLS from 2001 - 2009. "All" means exactly that, a combination: condos, detached houses, estates, townhouses, in the City and Counties covered by CAAR.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.


The prices (rounded on the graph) come from the Virginia Association of Realtors. The graph is courtesy of SLR, who provided the Q2 graphs in this post. In the comments after the same post, Debaser said:

The drop in prices over the first half of this year is still much less than the steep increase in prices during the bubble years.

Michael Guthrie, CAAR Pres, notes:

If you look at the 1st half market report (caar.com) you will see the rise in prices vs the decrease forms almost a perfect bell curve. One might think that prices haven't gone down as fast as they have gone up but in reality, median prices rose significantly from 2005-2007 and have fallen almost at the same rate from 2007 to today.

While this is accurate, looking further back in pricing history gives the broader picture.

Prices rose 50% between the years of 2001 and 2007.

2001: 139,000
2002: 166,900 +16.5%
2003: 186,750 +11.9%
2004: 218,950 +17.2%
2005: 240,000 +9.6%
2006: 271,790 +13.2%
2007: 274,000 +0.8%
2008: 268,159 -2.1%
2009: 247,000 -7.9%

And even while the above graph for the entire area says "bubble"--prices far exceeded inflation, income capability, and historic annual home appreciation-- the graph actually falls significantly short of telling the entire story of what's happened to prices in this area.

A higher measure of bubble valuation is to be found in the prices for single family (detached) homes for individual communities. You know the saying? "All real estate is local." Combining the pricing for the City and five counties necessarily lowers the prices in the more expensive areas. Each place--City of Charlottesville, the County of Albemarle County, and the other Counties that make up either the Charlottesville MSA or the CAAR MLS (the MSA is a Census Bureau designation, the MLS is the trade association designation) needs its own sales graphs to show actual valuation histories--and current declines.

Buyers and sellers will have a more accurate picture of the market with this information.

In his Charlottesville Market Report - First Half 2009, Realtor Jim Duncan at RealCentralVA has inventory level graphs. He's also stated that he has median price graphs forthcoming. Additionally, the bubble blog has some enthusiastic graphmakers :0). So more data will appear in the next few days either here or RealCentralVA or both. BTW...don't miss Jim's educated guess (as opposed to "prediction") for "bottom" of the market in the above-linked post.

CAAR's Mid-Year Market Report 2009

Yesterday, we posted graphs showing declining sales in the City, the County, the MSA, and the Region.

Today, The Daily Progress has a summary of the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtor's Second Quarter 2009 report. The article is entitled "Area's Mid-Year Home Sales Reflect Continued Struggle." And it again answers the question posed by last year's article, from July 11, 2008: "Is This the Bottom?" The answer to that question was, of course, "No."

Michael Guthrie, President of CAAR and CEO of Roy Wheeler Realty, says the market "...will not truly improve until maybe the end of the next year. He doubts that there will be any measurable appreciation in price before the end of 2010 or 2011."

And most likely before that time, there will be more significant price drops. As we discussed yesterday, there's little to prevent further price declines in this area.

Below is a graphic from the DP article, showing home sales for the first six months of each year, 2005-2009. Click on image for larger version in new window.

Graphs: Declining Real Estate Sales in Charlottesville, Albemarle, Central Virginia

Real Estate sales have been declining in Central Virginia since 2005, even with upticks during Spring selling season. Inventory, however, remains consistently high; and pricing is just starting to enter the double digits in declines.

A picture can be worth more than a thousand words--a truism several readers recently embraced by submitting the following graphs. These are pictorial representations of RE sales in:

1. All of Central Virginia, 2003-2009
   
2. The Charlottesville MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area), 2005-2009
   
3. Second Quarter Detached (single family) home sales in Charlottesville and Albemarle, 2006-2009

1. Sales in Central Virginia, 2003- 2009

This graph shows sales for the entire Central Virginia area since 2003. These figures are for all types of sales: detached, condo, townhome, farm, estate.

The Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors covers the Charlottesville MSA (City, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Nelson), but the website publishes inventory and sales for the entire region. As of Wednesday, July 8, there were 3,606 properties for sale.

The sales figures for each six month period appear in a second image below this graph. The graph's creator added an observation in lieu of label at the top of the graph.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.


To reiterate, below are the numbers plotted by the caret points on the graph:

Click on numbers for larger image in new window.


2. Sales in the Charlottesville Metropolitan Statistical Area, June 2005 - May 2009

Commenter Debaser sent the graph below, which shows sales in the Charlottesville Metropolitan Statistical Area. Sales are down about -45% from the peak in June 2006. These figures are for all types of sales: detached, condo, townhome, farm, estate.

Debaser used the sales data from market reports at RealCentralVA (click under "market data" at that site for a comprehensive list of reports).

There are currently 2,189 properties for sale in the Charlottesville MSA. This figure does not include "proposed" unbuilt properties that are searchable on the MLS.

The maroon line = sales.
The green lines = YOY changes.
The broken line = 12 months moving average.
Click on graph for larger image in new window.


The graph ends with the seasonal sales uptick in May. Notice each Spring there's a seasonal uptick in sales--but then there's the three season drop. And each consecutive year has significantly fewer sales than the last.

3. City of Charlottesville, County of Albemarle - Single Family Home Sales - Second Quarter 2009

SLR sent three graphs for the Second Quarter 2009, of single family, detached home sales in Charlottesville and Albemarle combined (that is, no other Counties in the MSA), for June, May, and April 2009.

Current Inventory:
201 houses in City of Charlottesville
665 houses in Albemarle County.
This does not include "proposed" unbuilt properties that are searchable on the MLS.

• Second Quarter sales for 2009, at 244, are just slightly higher than sales for the month of June in 2006.
• Q2 sales 2009 are down from Q2 sales 2006 by -48%; down -30% from 2008.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.


Above: June '09 sales are down -55% from 2006, down -32% from 2008.

Below: May '09 sales down -40% from 2006; down -23% from 2008.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.


Below: April 2009 sales down -51% from 2006; down -34% from 2008.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.



(NB: number of recorded June 2009 closed sales may be a more variable figure than any of the other figures)

Last year we opined that this market might bottom in 2010. Is this possible? Consider:

• The amount of additional inventory built or converted to sales properties in the past 8 years is out of line with population growth and buyer demand
  
• Plus inventory keeps rising by sellers who bought 2002-2007 and have to sell
• Plus inventory keeps rising by Boomers who want to downsize or retire
  
• Plus inventory keeps rising by those who are leaving town due to lack of jobs (GenY) or being finished w/job at UVA
  
• Combined with selling prices that only now show declines in the teen%s
• Mixed with tanking national/global economy
• Toss in fact that home prices far outpaced wages, years ago
  
• And let's not forget there will be no new "career" paying jobs in the area for years
• And everywhere suffers from a lack of qualified buyers, especially at the jumbo loan level
  

= Doesn't seem possible. Unless, of course, mortgage rates suddenly go down to 1% and area prices go back to 1999. LOL!

Related Reading:
The United States is Nowhere Near the Bottom of the Housing Crash - T2
Forecast For the Central Virginia Market - Virginia Housing Development Authority
Cville MSA Contracts January - June 2009 Via CAAR
What Did That House Sell For?
July 1 - Where Are We?
Gen Y Priced Out of Cville Market
Lack of "Move Up" Buyers in Cville Market

Whatever Happened To...These Properties in the Rugby Road Area?

What happened to these City properties, which this blog looked at in April?

Sold
1841 Fendall Avenue, sold 6/26 $490K. Asking: $500K. Previous owner paid $900K in 12/08.

Still Available
1833 Fendall Avenue - MLS 464447 - Price Reduced $100K: Now $645K from $697K (late April) from $742K (mid April). Owner paid $227K in '97.

809 Winston Terrace - MLS 461693 - $795K. Paid $515K in 5/06.

Foreclosure Auction
1810 Winston Road - Was scheduled for auction afternoon of 4/29 Charlottesville Courthouse steps. Owing: $333.7K. Owner paid $460K in 2004. Property has not transferred, according to City records.

Related: What Did That House Sell For?

1605 Keith Valley Road - Bank Buys For $570K, Resells for $300K

We looked at 1605 Keith Valley Road, in Meadowbrook Heights, after it was featured in the "On the Block" column of The Hook and the price dropped. It went for $300K in March '09.

Related: What Did That House Sell For?

Whatever Happened To...These Listings With March Open Houses?

A March 2009 post looked at five listings:

Sold:
3009 Indigo Road, Crozet, Parkside Village. Asking: $360k; Selling: $358K.
Previously sold in October 2004 for $355,967K.

No longer on the MLS:
But there's no "sold" data in County or City records:

763 Belvedere Blvd, MLS 449160 in the troubled Belvedere Development, had at that point been on the market for 400+ days, after Church Hill Homes, a builder, lost it in Foreclosure. The house was originally listed at $499K, then dropped to $375K.

6 Riverside Avenue, MLS 425529, $535K, Woolen Mills neighborhood next to Riverside Park, "Green construction."

Still Available:
2303 Greenbrier Drive, MLS 462975, Charlottesville, Greenbrier neighborhood off Rio Road, no price change, $335K.

919 Club Drive, MLS 457987, Keswick Estates, Keswick, Price Reduced
Original Asking: $2.1M
March Asking: $1.9M
July Asking: $1,790,000

Related Reading: What Did That House Sell For?

128 Goodman St. Sells: $135K / 24% Below Asking of $575K

128 Goodman Street, an over/under duplex w/ backyard cottage in Belmont, was previously owned by an investor/landlord, sold for $440K. Assessed: $362.9K.

Related Reading:
What Did It Sell For?

751 Park Street Sells: $168K / 22% Below Asking of $769K

751 Park Street, a historic house near downtown, was on and off the market for one year, and sold for $601K.

Related Reading:
What Did That House Sell For?

120 Overlook Drive - FDIC Owned - Make Offer

...And you can have this 4,000 sq ft, 5 bedroom, 3 bath house w/in-law suite and storage, ca. 1965, on 2 1/2 acres just south of town, with "quick negotiations" and a $75.00 document fee.

MLS 467436, $285K. FDIC repo'd in late April for $267K. In 2007, tax man assessed at $412K; now it's at $375K.

Overlook Dr. is off Teel Rd, which connects to 29 just south of the I-64 interchange.

Missing Glenmore Development Associate Michael Comer - Update

There's no update on Comer's whereabouts, but there's some more info in the press. Sadly, this is going to end badly, no matter what the details turn out to be.

Hawes Spencer at The Hook writes about the circumstances surrounding the disappearance, and The DP has more commentary from the Nelson County Sheriff.

From The Hook:

The case of the missing hiker is quickly becoming the case of the missing treasurer, as the homeowner association for Glenmore, the plush golf community, reveals that country club president Michael D. Comer went missing shortly before a key meeting about a financial audit. After his disappearance, the association replaced him as treasurer.

“The behind-the-scenes view of this is that he staged this thing and ran off,” says Tommy Stafford of Nelson County Life, the first local publication to notice the identity of the missing man. “They can’t be 100 percent sure,” says Stafford, who has conferred with several top law enforcement officers, “but things are certainly looking that way.”

And from today's (Wednesday, July 8) DP:

The Nelson County sheriff David Brooks:

“There’s not a lot you can do, especially when you don’t have a criminal act,” Brooks said. “I can’t go into your background — if there’s not a criminal act — and get the paperwork signed off, just to see where you’re at, if you’re an adult.”

“I mean, a person of age has a right to be missing,” Brooks said. “There’s not a crime against it.”

And Comer's brother-in-law, Realtor Jeff Gaffney said,

“I would tell him that there’s a lot of people [who have] prayed for him and his return,” Gaffney said, “and that the whole Glenmore community has kind of rallied around this and is hoping for the best for him, hoping that he’ll come home.”

“And here’s the important part,” Gaffney said, “if he could see the look in the eyes of his children and his wife, he’d want to get back home.”

Read The Hook article here.
Read The DP article here.
Earlier material here.

What Did That House Sell For? Where's the Data?

There are currently 1,304 properties listed for sale in the City of Charlottesville and the County of Albemarle. In Fluvanna, Greene, and Nelson Counties (the rest of the Charlottesville MSA) there are 884 properties, for a total of 2,188. (This does not include "proposed" or unbuilt properties that appear on the MLS.) In all of Central Virginia, there are 3,587 properties available.

This is the busiest RE time of year, even in a downturn. So where does a buyer or seller find "sold" data?

Via these sources:

1. City of Charlottesville: www.realestate.charlottesville.org
2. Albemarle County: www.gisweb.albemarle.org
3. A Realtor, with whom you are ostensibly working to buy or sell a house, has access to the information before it is made publicly available, if the house was listed on the MLS (as most still are in this area).
4. List of tax assessors in other Cities and Counties: click here.

Issues with data access:

1. City of Charlottesville - It is only possible to access one property at a time on your own computer. There's no downloading of any information onto a desktop. Additionally, there is a lag time (obviously) between a property going under contract, closing, and then being recorded (all times are variable).

At the City Tax Assessor's, using the public computer in the office, it is possible to access neighborhood data.

2. Albemarle County - has a more sophisticated system. It is possible to download not only information for an individual property, but also for subdivisions, and for particular dates, in Excel. The "lag time" issues are the same as for the City. However, the County's interface has an FAQ that will tell users when the data was last updated.

3. Realtor: A Realtor can access the data for any property, including those recently under contract, before the sales data becomes a matter of public record.

What if you're a buyer or seller who wants/needs to track the market, but you haven't hired (or have access to) a Realtor?

You will encounter some difficulties. And it is likely you will not have a clear picture of the market, especially in terms of downward pricing trends, such as they are.

In other real estate markets it can be easier to discover information about completed property sales, plus info on short sales and foreclosures. Example: the Washington DC metro area, where sales info and tax assessments are available via The Washington Post: click here.

A frequent blog commenter describes a standard experience in this area. "Serious Buyer" lives in another MSA, but is planning a move to this area. This individual did a search of the County records mid-June 2009, and then told of the experience:

I don't have access to a dump of transfer records from the City online system. I did, however, dump all public records from the Albermarle online system with a code of "single family" that had transferred between 1/1/09-6/1/09. This is an example of the data integrity we are dealing with and the resultant questions for further investigation:

Total of 703 records exported.
387 contained a transfer price.
416 with price of $0.

Why is there no transfer price and when will the prices be added? I expect the answer is some are invalid transfers, delay in data entry, change in status, etc.

Transfer records only went through 5/20/09 although pulled through 6/1. That is 4 weeks lag from today. When are the records entered into the system? How long is the delay generally?

387 records containing transfer price equaled an average of $445.3K, and the median as $290K. The transfer prices ranged from $4,750,000 to $34,000.

This data is for all of Albermarle County and so does not give a good picture of neighborhoods in close proximity to C'ville. Is this data of any use to somebody not familiar with the area?

It is almost impossible for anyone to really get a good view of what is going on independently of the Realtors. They have the most data, but how accurate is it and who enters it? Most sales forces keep terrible records and the Realtor offices don't have adequate or trained staff to keep data clean and consistent.

County and City governments are notorious for terrible records. Often the tax assessor is behind in collections because his office is behind in data entry and can't keep up with property transfer data.

The empirical evidence I rely on in this fractured industry is observation. When the list prices are down in aggregate, we may have a market that is moving once again.

The last comment addresses the fact that sales have been declining steadily not just in the City, the County, the Charlottesville MSA, but the entire Central Virginia area...since 2006.

The upshot? There's not a 'crystal clear' picture, for buyers and sellers, of what's happening in this market. Even with the sales data posted on this blog (in the form of contracts written, generously provided by Realtor Greg Slater) and the market updates from other Realtors (especially RealCentralVA), it can still be difficult for individuals to gain access to hard data.

Michael Comer, Glenmore Country Club Prez and Developer, Still Missing

The 45 year-old Albemarle County man, whose disappearance was reported Wednesday, July 1, 7:30 pm by his wife, is still missing.

The family met with Nelson County Sheriff's Department on Sunday, July 5.

Police initially searched the hiking trails near his second home at Wintergreen Resort in Nelson County, but called off the search by Thursday night, July 2.

At this point, investigators consider Michael Comer a "missing person," and do not suspect foul play. According to media reports, “There’s no evidence that there was a crime committed,” said Nelson County Sheriff David Brooks on Friday.
Comer was president of Glenmore Country Club, in the Glenmore Development in Keswick, Albemarle County, and also served as project manager for Glenmore Associates, the entity responsible for the Glenmore Development. Comer's brother in law is Jeff Gaffney of Real Estate III; he is the one who went to Wintergreen to look for Comer.

Comer’s vehicle was found near his Wintergreen house with the doors unlocked and the keys inside. Gaffney said, “We have absolutely no idea what’s happened to him.”

According to NBC29,

Officials have said they would consider investigating other “areas and avenues” that may be connected to Comer’s disappearance.

What exactly those other scenarios are is something police “haven’t fully explained,” Gaffney said.

Gaffney said that Comer didn’t have any enemies, and he doesn’t know if Comer — whom he called a devoted family man — may have left town.

“We’re looking at every possibility,” Gaffney said.

Related Reading:
Family Talks About Missing Man - NBC29
Officials Called Off Search - The Hook
Local Man Missing - Cville Newsplex

VP Biden: We "Misread the Economy"

VP Joe Biden admits to ABC's George Stephanopolous that the Obama Admin was too optimistic about rising unemployment rates when the Economic Stimulus package was concocted and passed. So will there be another stimulus? Watch the video here.

Homeowners Challenging Property Taxes

It's a nationwide phenomenon. From the NYTimes:

Homeowners across the country are challenging their property tax bills in droves as the value of their homes drop, threatening local governments with another big drain on their budgets.

The requests are coming in record numbers, from owners of $10 million estates and one-bedroom bungalows.

The revenue losses are coming as homeowners prod towns for new assessments, and as municipalities conduct regular revaluations of their real estate. While declining residential values weigh heaviest on many governments, the value of commercial real estate is also sliding as businesses shut down and move out of storefronts or shopping malls.

Read the article here.

The deadline for Cville tax challenges was March 3. Just before this deadline, the Assessor's office had received nearly 400 requests, and expected additional challenges. For more info on this year's City taxes and related links, go here. To read about Albemarle County's Assessment values declining, click here.

UVIMCO Gains in May

The UVA Investment Management Company gained about $154.3M in May, to push the endowment just over $4B. Last year at this time, the endowment was worth over $5B.

UVIMCO will release its Q2 report in about a month. The stock market has been going up lately (until Friday July 3; unemployment figures) basically on the idea of "less bad is better than horrible" (to paraphrase Barry Ritholtz). But the most bearish still expect the market to dip below 8000 if not 7000; and there's that issue of allocation for UVIMCO's funds.

Related Reading:
UVIMCO's Investment Report for May
Missing Billion
25 Years of Conventional Wisdom Down the Drain