NBC29 news did a piece on Thursday on Charlottesville’s Avon Center retail development.  You can check it out here.

No one has made an official announcement yet on the specifics or the timeframe of development.  The big unknown is the expansion/construction of the Bent Creek Parkway, which will connect 5th Street to Avon Street and will serve as the linchpin for the entire Avon Center development.

Avon Center will have a big impact on residents living in Downtown Charlottesville and Southside, including neighborhoods like Belmont, Mill Creek, Redfields, Mosby Mountain and Whittington.

The Hook did recap of Deborah Rutter and Amy Webb‘s listing at 100 Troost Court in Charlottesville’s Fry’s Spring neighborhood.

Check it out here.

And a quick quote:

With both the sunroom and a greenhouse situated along the front elevation, the house is noticeably short on curb appeal. However, prospective buyers might remember the adage about not judging a book by its cover, for the lackluster exterior belies the upscale finishes found within. Replacing the sliders that ring the sunroom with more modern (and energy-efficient) doors and relocating the greenhouse could go a long way toward sprucing up the facade and providing an external appearance more in keeping with the fine quality of the interior.

Contact Amy Webb or Deborah Rutter for more information.

The Nest Realty Q4 Nest Report was picked up yesterday by two local news stations.  If you haven’t read our report, check out these quick snippets…and then touch base with your favorite Nest Realty agent to get a little more of a recap.

Overall, we’re using the two words: CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM.  For the first time in years, there is actually a string of positive news in real estate.  It’s a combination of positive national news and positive stories locally from the real estate trenches.  Want a great story ‘from the trenches’?  This past weekend, one of our Nest agents, Janice Kavanagh, hosted an open house and had 33 visitors.  Yes, 33!  That’s a sign that buyers are beginning to look.

Here’s the story and video from Charlottesville’s NBC 29.

And here’s one from the Charlottesville Newsplex.

Stay tuned for more analysis on the Charlottesville real estate market in coming days.  We’re really working hard to dig through the numbers so that our agents and clients have a better take on what’s happening in the market.

Overall, we’re seeing some very positive signs in the local marketplace.  Besides many national economic indicators having upward trends, there’s a really good vibe locally…and we hope that continues.

Nest Report Charlottesville: Q4 2011

Nest-Report-Charlottesville-Q4-2011

Overall, the November 2011real estate market in Charlottesville performed about as we expected.  Overall, total year-over-year sales were down (from 174 to 150). Median sales prices in the Charlottesville MSA were also down…by about 3% from November 2010.

There was some positive news, though: the three-year total sales trend is now slightly positive…meaning that sales in recent months are trending higher than what we’ve seen, on average, over the last 3 years.

From the report…

Regional year-over-year total sales dropped in November as compared to 2010. Total sales over the last 12 calendar months (2279) are relatively flat to the prior 12 month period (2327). That, in and of itself, is a victory in today’s market.  Overall median prices in November did drop about 3% from November 2010. Days on Market for sold properties has remained relatively steady over the last 12 months – typically hovering in the 100 to 120 day range. Inventory levels for the entire MSA increased from 14.81 in November 2010 to 16.84 months. While total inventory levels did drop slightly, the drop from 174 to 150 total sales forced the Months of Inventory up approximately 15%.

Even with the drop in sales during November, the three-year sales trend is now slightly positive in Central Virginia. Total sales in all six areas dropped as compared to last November. Notably, Albemarle County sales dipped from 73 to 69 and Charlottesville City sales fell from 21 to 20. In addition, contracts written in Albemarle fell from 94 in 2010 to 75 this past month. Charlottesville City contracts increased from 25 to 26. On a positive note, condos and attached home sales in the MSA increased 40% year-over-year and Months of Inventory fell 21% to 12.97 months.

Nest Report Charlottesville: November 2011

Thank you to all who attended Nest’s party on Friday. We are humbled and grateful for your support, your presence and your thinking of us.

We look forward every year to the opportunity to say “thank you” to our friends and clients, and this year was particularly special. We moved the location just a wee bit down the street, as we had outgrown the tent; and the folks at the Gleason building had the perfect space for us to use.

One of the overriding principles at Nest Realty is that we’re local. We are local, we practice local, and we advocate local. As such, we looked to our local friends below to provide everything we needed for the party.

Thank you to:

All of our agents at Nest Realty.

BBQ Exchange

Beer Run

Blue Mountain Brewery

Festive Fare

Octagon Partners

Revolutionary Soup

Starr Hill

Cville Inflatables – a very special thank you to Cville Inflatables for saving the party. The first bounce house we had ordered turned out to be too large, so we cold-called Tom Slonaker with Cville Inflatables and asked if he could save the day. He listened, and asked if we would mind if he finished the small project he was doing before he came down with a bounce house that would fit. Needless to say, we didn’t mind at all! The 30-50 kids (and their parents and all of the Nesters) were immensely grateful for Tom’s saving the day.

We look forward to an even more remarkable 2012.

Then, we distilled the info on lockbox openings from last week into monthly data instead of weekly. Herein lies the first issue. The information I have on lockboxes is not in monthly data, it is in weekly. I have broken the data into the monthly brackets. However, four of the months had five weeks in them, and the rest four. To smooth that curve and make it make sense (all months could have 28 days instead of some having 35) for the months with five weeks, I summed the data for lockbox openings and divided by five and multiplied by four. It’s not precise, but it is pretty darn close.

I then took the two charts and divided the showings by the listings and got the information shown in the chart below.

A few things I noticed. As one would expect, showings drop off significantly as each year progresses. What surprised me though was how short a peak there is each year. By the time May and June roll around, while they may be more showings, the number of active listings is up so much that the positive impact of the added showings is overshadowed by the inventory. There appears to be only a 60 day period during which sellers have the opportunity to take advantage of the spring shoppers before other sellers enter the market. Note that in 2010 this is exaggerated by the Homebuyer Tax Credit. Otherwise, 2011 showings seem to be down between 15 and 20% from peak based on inventory.

Some additional notes on limitations. For Inventory numbers, I used a 16 county list. For many of these areas (Waynesboro for instance) the town lies on the cusp of two Realtor Associations. Waynesboro uses a different lockbox system; however, many agents still list with CAAR. My response to this limitation is that while there is a contribution to an guaranteed error, that limitation runs through all the numbers evenly. We are not interested in the specific number of showings, but rather the ratio over time and the trends. Having some listings that are not on our lockbox system does not change those trends.

Another issue revolves around Bank Owned Properties or REOs. When banks list property, many times these properties are not on association lockboxes. Instead, there are combo-locks that the bank can use with their own contractors. If the foreclosed homes are the listings that are getting the most attention, and those showings are not being tracked, there is question as to how much impact this is having. As of today, there are 3013 listings in the 16 counties listed above. There are 129 total properties that are Bank Owned. Even if REOs are getting double the number of showings and not one REO has an Association Lockbox, this still means less than a 5% impact on total showings.

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Keith Davis is a Partner and Associate Broker with Nest Realty Group.

All stats in real estate are either about sales or leading to sales. You can track actual property transfer trends, or you can watch new contracts written, or pending. But there is one other valuable number: Lockboxes. Just as tracking new contracts written can predict the number of sales in the next 60 days, the number of lockboxes opened can predict the number of contracts that will be written.

In the Charlottesville MLS, as in many areas of the country, our listings are protected by a computerized lockbox system. In order for any agent to enter one of my listings, they must use a personalized computer key to access the key for the house. That info then gets sent back to me as a listing agent, and thus I know how often my listing is being shown, and by whom. There are some limitations, but in general, the system works really well.

Enter Nest Realty. For over a year now, we have been accessing the entire MLS lockbox data and trending that info. We don’t have access to what houses are being shown, nor in what areas of the MSA. The only thing we know is that in the last 7 days, there were 1318 lockboxes that were opened in the entire MLS. Compare that to a year ago when 1455 were opened, and we can start to see that there are 9.4% fewer homes being looked at than a year ago.

But certainly one week does not tell the whole story. Let’s look at the year since January 1. Internally, we predicted that 2011 would be far below 2010 in the first quarter for showings, and we were right. The basis for this hypothesis was that during 2010, the Homebuyer Tax Credit was in place and thus showings and sales were higher than the true market. We weren’t too worried about it. Our belief was that as soon as we got to comparing May numbers, we would likely see growth against 2010. Check out this small subset of the graph.
The Blue line is 2010 and the Green is 2011. As I stated above, the 2011 numbers are below 2010 except for the week of the great snowstorm of 2010. In fact, the numbers vary anywhere from 12 % to 29% lower in 2011. But, we kept looking at the tax credit and saying, 2010 had an anomaly of showings in Q1. What really matters is Q2. And with Q2, we again saw exactly what we expected… at least for the first few weeks.

As soon as the tax credit expired in ’10, the showings dropped off significantly. And the 2011 numbers started looking better. As long as we kept pace and stayed over the 2010 numbers, we would clearly be indicating some form of leveling at worse or a recovery at best. But… as much as we’d like to stand up and say its all over, this just isn’t what we are seeing.

Next you see the period of 2011 SINCE the April 30 period. Please NOTE: I have changed the scale on the two graphs. There is not nearly as much variability in the second chart.

Between May 5 and July 15, there was only one period where 2010 had more showings than 2011. This is what we expected… What we didn’t expect was the period after July 15. Since July 15, there have only been 2 weeks where the 2011 numbers were better than 2010. There has just been a giant stall across the market. We had several weeks in April 2011 where we had more than 2000 showings a week. We have not seen 1500 showings a week now since July.

So, what do the lockboxes tell us? For starters, that any real chance of stabilization this year is in question. But, things can turn on a dime in this market, and a one month uptick can make the difference between a lackluster year and a genuinely strong year.

The other interesting thing we see is just how few showings there have been. According to the CAAR data, across the entire MLS, there are more than 3500 active listings. If the showings last week were spread out evenly (which they never are) there would have been less than one showing for every two houses. (Yikes). One thing is for sure. There is little chance of selling a house that is not even being shown. If you want to sell, you very much have to be willing to price very aggressively. You need to turn heads.

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Keith Davis is a Partner and Associate Broker with Nest Realty Group.

Let’s jump into why sales are down.  We can sum it up pretty easily: 2010 Homebuyer’s Tax Credit.  As you may recall, the tax credit expired in Q2 2010 – thus artificially pumping up sales in that quarter.  Q2 2010 was one of the most active quarters in three years for Charlottesville area real estate.  As expected, sales in Q3 and Q4 2010 dropped fairly significantly after the tax credit expiration.

As you read through this report, you’ll see a lot of similarities between Q2 2011 numbers and Q2 2009 numbers.  Fortunately, total Charlottesville area MSA sales are up about 10% over 2009 .  However, pricing and inventory levels are very similar.  For example, median sales prices for the single family homes are exactly the same ($275,000) and median sales prices for attached/condos are off by only $500 ($195,000 vs. $194,500).

We’ve been talking here for a while that sales will only increase when prices get down to the level where buyers see value.  So, this could be a good sign that buyers see value out there – at least in the properties that are selling.

It’s also interesting to note a few ‘sub-market’ trends.  Single family home sales in Albemarle County were relatively strong this past quarter (down 8% y-o-y) when compared to attached (down 38%) and condominiums (down 34%).  In Charlottesville City, single family homes and attached home sales struggled.  However, City condo sales were up almost 48% from Q2 2010.  The increase in condo sales can be linked directly to price reductions in City condos.

Lower priced homes continue to sell at a much better clip than high priced homes.  95% of City sales and 82% of Albemarle County sales were under $500,000.  Inventory levels for $500k+ homes continue to be extremely high in most parts of Central Virginia.  YTD there have been 125 sales in the MSA over $500,000 and 44 have taken place in Western Albemarle (that’s 35%).  As in year’s past, Western Albemarle continues to have the highest percentage of high priced home sales.  (One other interesting tidbit relating to the over $500k market: 34% have been cash purchases.  Compare that to 21% of the other sales.)

As with past Quarters, distressed sales (short sales and foreclosures) are definitely impacting the market and market values.  Foreclosure rates seem to have slowed, but short sales continue to be a common occurrence.  On the positive side, overall inventory levels have creeped down ever-so-slightly.  That trend must continue for the real estate recovery to happen.  But the same story rings true: buyers are looking for values and sellers must be realistic with their pricing expectations if they expect to get their home sold.

Q2 2011 Nest Report Charlottesville

And that brings us to this month’s installment of the Nest Charlottesville market report: as expected, sales dropped fairly significantly in Central Virginia in May 2011 as compared to May 2010. This was expected since the Homebuyer’s Tax Credit pushed a huge number of closings into the April/May/June 2010 timeframe so that buyers could capitalize on the credit. The downside of that was that the 2nd half of 2010 suffered as sales essentially ‘fast tracked’ to these months. So, it’s not a shock that total sales are down in all Central Virginia regions: Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson.

We’re continuing to move towards a recovery, but we’re not quite there yet. Why do we think this? Inventories continue to hold fairly steady and median prices continue to drop in most areas. Two of the biggest factors towards a market recovery are tied to inventory levels and price…and probably can be tied to just price.

Here’s what I mean: when prices get back to levels where purchasers feel there is a) value and b) low risk, those purchasers buy homes. So, as sellers drop prices, they are opening their potential buyer pool up more and more. While none of us want prices to fall, it is (unfortunately) a necessity for our market (or any market) to recover.

So, to recap: sales numbers in May were stable – nothing spectacular. Median prices are down from May 2010 about 5%. Days on Market held fairly steady (109 vs. 107). Overall Months of Inventory increased over 2010 (10.4 to 12.64), but is down from 2009 (14.54 to 12.64).

Nest Report Charlottesville: May 2011