With the fairly significant drop in home sales throughout Charlottesville and Albemarle County in July, many sellers are beginning to become wary of their ability to move their home in 2010. Some pockets of Charlottesville continue to chug along, though. Real estate in the Albemarle High School District (which includes Barracks Road, Rio, 29 North, and Earlysville) saw a slight drop in July home sales, but held pretty steady overall.
August 2008 – July 2009
Home Sales: 227
Median Sold Price: $335,000
Months of Inventory: 12.52
August 2009 – July 2010
Home Sales: 295 (up 29.9%)
Median Sold Price: $340,500 (up 1.6%)
Months of Inventory: 9.60 (down 23.3%)
Clearly the last 12 months has proven to be a positive time for home sales throughout Barracks, Rio, 29, and Earlysville. However, as we have discovered, just about every segment of the Charlottesville real estate market has seen a large jump in sales during that same period. The positive trends seem to stop in July, where sales have been down significantly from the previous July…sometimes over 60% off.
But while sales in the Albemarle HS district were off, but not as much as some other segments of the Charlottesville and Albemarle real estate market. Overall, home sales in July were off 21% from the previous July (30 vs. 38). However, the percentage of list-to-sale in July 2010 was up significantly from July 2009 (95.18% vs. 85.52%). That’s a fairly dangerous number to pin positive hopes on though. As we’ve talked about before, the list-to-sale ratio can be gamed a bit and isn’t always completely reliable.
The increase in jobs from NGIC hirings may be a factor helping to prop up this segment of the market. While the total number of NGIC jobs will not keep the Charlottesville real estate market alive by itself, it certainly won’t hurt. Those jobs have been a nice shot in the arm to the market over the last year…and the additional jobs over the next year will assist in our local real estate recovery.
