After smacking bottom at the end of 2006, the Charlottesville-area real estate market has leveled off, despite a 17 percent drop in sales from this time last year. That’s according to the Mid-Year Market Report [PDF version of the report available here] from the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors (CAAR), which says now that we’ve lived through two years of “insanity,” the market is beginning a gradual upswing.
Mid-year sales in Charlottesville, Albemarle and surrounding counties decreased to 1,882 from 2,267 homes sold at this time last year. That means we’re still in a buyer’s market, but according to CAAR, the real estate pendulum is ever so gently swinging back towards the center.
Yet realtor and real estate blogger Jim Duncan isn’t ready to buy into CAAR’s assessment. “We’re firmly entrenched in a buyer’s market,” says Duncan. Charlottesville saw a $43,000 jump (18 percent) in mid-year median sales prices to $280,000, its biggest in five years after a $3,500 drop last year. Impressive, sure—until you factor in the spike of lower-priced condo sales in 2006 that helped keep the median price low.
As Charlottesville jumped, median prices in Albemarle, which saw a small decline in townhome and condo sales, dropped $15,000 to $310,500.
Outside the city core lay pools of relative real estate calm. Median prices increased incrementally in Fluvanna (4.7 percent), Greene (6.7 percent) and Louisa (1.3 percent). Along with Albemarle, Nelson County dropped 3.8 percent.
Outer counties are “becoming more distinct markets,” says Duncan. “They’re differentiating themselves…becoming more markets unto themselves.”
BY SCOTT WEAVER, C-VILLE
