City of Charlottesville Real Estate Sales Trends

I was running some sales trends on detached home sales in the City of Charlottesville over the weekend and noticed this interesting graph.

First of all, this graph shows detached home sales and price per foot in the City of Charlottesville through June 11th of each year (2006-2009).  It’s interesting to see that sales have dropped off by 47.8% (186 to 97) from 2006 to 2009.  However, price per square foot has dropped only 13.9%. 

My analysis of this is pretty simple: sales numbers will continue to lag unless sales prices come down.  To this point, prices have not come down in Charlottesville nearly as much as they have (relatively) in places like Northern Virginia.  I’m hearing certain pockets in NoVa are seeing record sales numbers b/c buyers are perceiving value now that prices have come down.  Yes – there are certain pockets of our market in which more buyers perceive value (notably, sub $250k in Charlottesville and closer in neighborhoods in Albemarle County).  However, most market segments may still be a bit high for sales to flow more.

So, once again: price your home right.  There are buyers in and around Charlottesville looking for value.  If you want to (or need to sell), you’ll have a much better chance if you price your home realistically.