The Nest Report – your light reading as you nod off to sleep. In all seriousness, after doing two quarters of real estate market reports here in the New River Valley (see Q1, and Q2), we’re thrilled that so many of you ask “when’s the next quarter going to be available?”. It makes our bean counters happy to know that their work is so desired; they don’t get a lot of attention, you know.
So what’s the report tell us? Some highlights:
- the number of sales increased between Q3 2011 and Q3 2012 by 3.4%
- inventory levels have dropped by as much as 27.7%, a potentially positive sign
- Blacksburg single-family homes saw a median price increase of 7.3%, to $263500
- Christiansburg dominated the quarter, with a year-over-year sales increase of 26%
- other areas, like Giles County, Pulaski County, and Radford City have seen increased prices and volume
We still have some challenges. As I said in the Q2 Report, we need to get inventory out of the market – it’s simple supply and demand. Too much supply, and prices will continue to remain flat, leaving a greater percentage of homeowners in a neutral cash, or negative cash, position. Prices cannot and will not rise without inventory levels continuing to decline, so we’ll definitely be watching that. Following that, it’ll be interesting to see what happens with average sales prices in Blacksburg going forward – I have NO data to support this, but I wonder what impact rising average and median home prices will have if incomes don’t also follow suit.
Questions about the report? Let’s talk.
Disclaimer – The Nest Report is our interpretation of the real estate market in the New River Valley, based on the statistics reported by the New River Valley MLS. When things are good, we’ll tell you that. And when things are bad, we’ll tell you that, too.