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The S&P/Case-Shiller® March Home-Price Index will be out this morning.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 5/26/2009
Posted by Harriet at 6:00 AM
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Office-Space Market Stuck in Downdraft
The Washington area market for office space has suffered one of its toughest stretches ever so far this year, as vacancy rates have shot up, rents have dropped and few new buildings have started construction. The slump is likely to continue for the rest of 2009, real estate experts say, as roughly 11 million square feet of new space is under construction and expected to come on line in the coming years.
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Northern Virginia, real estate experts say, seems to have learned its lessons from the boom and bust of the dot-com era, as only 1.6 million square feet is expected to be built in the next two years. The only proposed project with a major tenant is a 355,000-square-foot office building in Ballston, where a Defense Department agency is leasing the whole building. Northern Virginia's vacancy rate is up to 13.5 percent from 12.4 percent the second quarter of 2008, and rents are down to $28.96 a square foot from $30.60.
But Virginia's residential market continues to suffer, according to a recent report from the University of Virginia. Only 27,500 building permits were issued in 2008 -- less than half the activity of four years ago. In Northern Virginia, the number of permits issued is down 64 percent, and in Winchester it is down 77 percent.
"For the past few years the housing industry has suffered through a number of calamities, beginning with poorly conceived mortgage products, to skyrocketing foreclosure rates, to falling home prices," said Michael Spar, a University of Virginia demographer. "One of the casualties of this meltdown has been new-home construction."
Things that make you go HMMMMM.....
According to Fauquier County real estate records, this house was purchased for $829,765 in March, 2005:
http://franklymls.com/21547856
I don't get this one either--Tax assessment is $712,100
http://franklymls.com/FQ7017465
Northern Virginia Home Sales Increase for 13th Straight Month
Bay400,
My guess is "lucky sale" wishers.
http://franklymls.com/FQ7058697 is more realistic as a bank-owned.
Are you still looking for something with extra property?
contrarion
I love that he adds the bubble prices "for some perspective" That's not perspective, buster, that's insanity, not very useful as a measuring stick.
Cara-
It is also silly to use a single median for all of northern VA. When you do this all that matters is where houses sell. The averages will move more due to the mix of low price areas(Loudon, Centreville..) compared to high price areas(N. Arlington, McLean...) than due to changes in housing prices.
housebuyer,
Yeah, the average or the median are both effected by the mix. Only things like Case-Schiller or OFHEO are truly comparing apples to apples and showing the decrease or increase in the probably sale price of a given home.
If the REOs are now being better fixed up before being put on the market, or if people are choosing move-in ready over later repairs that will effect the median and average too, but not the bottom line total cost for the buyer. People who buy in spring, generally do so for the timing with the school year, hence are more likely to have kids, hence less likely to have the time and cash to make repairs or renovations before moving. Without things like Case-Schiller, we just can't tell. We'll get the Case-Schiller today (I'm not sure for which month or quarter though).
Just an FYI, but Patrick.net has a few articles about shadow inventory, projections, etc today. Probably nothing groundbreaking or worth linking here, unless you're unfamiliar with shadow inventory (cough cough).
Did anyone see the Barron's article about shadow inventory, etc this weekend?
Bearish, with the usual attention getting title:
The Housing Hurricane Will Howl AgainIt was written by a Florida guy, and does read as somewhat Florida-anecdotal, and we know how THAT market compares to DC and the country, but still...
HMMM! My fancying linking takes you to the article but wants you to subscribe to get most of it. (It's short, anyway.)
But if you google "barron's housing hurricane", you should be able to see the whole thing. I could, and I'm not a subscriber--saw the article on physical paper.
Actually, the Barron's article is one of the articles that kevin is mentioning that is linked to from patrick.net. But, it has the same subscriber-gatekeeping problem that MY link did! Again, you can google it...
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