2010 housing sales were off to a quiet but respectable start in Northern Virginia. This year began with less inventory than in the past four years. Arlington and Alexandria showed the most improvement in the number of sales in the Northern Virginia region, and median prices were flat to up slightly for most counties. In Greater Northern VA, Culpeper County had its second-highest sales in 13 years (2005 being the highest).
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Northern Virginia January Housing Sales
Posted by Harriet at 11:50 AM
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Wow you can really see what a change of mix does. Last month Arlington had a record high median sales price of 557K. This month the price was only 407K.
Here is a site with a lot of statistics, might be old news to some of you...
(this is for Fairfax but you can punch in other areas or zip codes)
http://www.city-data.com/housing/houses-Fairfax-Virginia.html
tbw,
I actually didn't have anyone in mind w/ the school comment as I haven't paid much attention to it. I just find the whole debate funny. However, I do grant you the safety issue. If you have to worry about gangs it's going to be hard to learn. So no offense to you or anyone in particular, just a comment I made.
@Leroy, some very good data, I haven't seen that site before. Thx.
Good links on homes.
The 1st Realtor I was working is from a Latin American country and moved here 10 years ago. I don't know exactly the type of house she lives in but I can guess b/c she bought it in '04. I sent her a couple of links for homes that were comparable to the area she lived in from another part of the country. She flipped. She came back and basically gave me the whole DC is different, seat of government, love the schools, etc. The typical reasons everyone gives here. She was trying to convince me as to why her decision to live here was the best decision. Nevermind that she is a Realtor and her husband worked in construction, i.e. their jobs are not tied to DC and she doesn't have family here.
The whole episode was quite hilarious that what she paid 5-600k for she could buy for ~150k elsewhere. As human beings we always justify our decisions as being the correct ones; it is hard to admit we made/make mistakes until forced. Most people resist change and are loathe to make corrective action midstream.
I guess the bottom line is that everything is relative and most will not consider moving as an option until things become so far skewed that the issue is forced upon them.
I know people hate when people take down comments but I'm taking my last few comments down because I think the topic mostly went nowhere. I don't think I'm having any success in trying to get people to grasp what it means if people need to make $100k+ to have a middle class lifestyle.
Let me try this another way...
(1) Does anyone here *OWN* a townhouse in Fairfax, Loudoun, or Prince William County? Own one, not rent one. And *you* own it, not your college friends, *you*. If yes, please tell me about *your personal experience.*
(2) Does anyone here send *their* kids to a school with a 30+% free/reduced lunch population. Not your friends, not your cousin, *you*. If so, what has your experience been like.
I'm sick and tired of hearing people's thoughts from the den in their McMansion about how life is not that bad on the other side of the fence.
TBW
Frakly life in the DC area is decaying.
A lot of times I mutter about getting a place in Baltimore, it's way cheaper, you can make it to DC on the MARC train, and, you can buy a lot more house and a lot more quality of life.
if you need 3 incomes, what's the point?
Harriet Thanks for the Arlington numbers. I was nervous when I first saw them because inventory is low, but 2 good new 1 bed listings came on market today in Arlington. Seeing them tomorrow. I make less than $70K but I am buying a condo. I am 24 & not interested in waiting to buy a townhouse or house back in Vienna. I just know that my brother bought the condo I rent in 2007 for $325,000 and I tried to buy one that was not as big for $385,000 two months ago and didn't get it because of competition. I understand the arguments that the housing ladder might not work in areas where prices are more volatile. Arlington condo prices have less volatility and seems to recover faster. If the market gets flooded with REO and short sales after the bribe is over, I will be very surprised but will take my lumps. The REOs and shorts I have seen I would not buy anyway. Let the investors have them.
More crying babies emerge - now that we have bailed out every single company that should have been allowed to fail, now it is the turn of countries...
France, Germany Weigh Rescue Plan for Greece
Concept of sound long term polices, fiscal discipline and allowing failures is no where to be seen. No one ever fails here anymore. This is the ultimate death of capitalism.
I am heading for Vegas with all my savings...I am sure, someone shall bail me out...
I am getting sick of bailouts and government interventions. This is not solving the structural problems we have - it never had & it never will.
Rick Santelli said it really well on CNBC yesterday - Linky
Stop the fear mongering - just let the market work for once...
Pat,
LOL have you actually lived in Baltimore? Actually done the commute from there to DC day after day?
Quality of life, eh? Baltimore is on the top 25 list for most dangerous metro areas. Washington is not. (They are both on the top 25 list for CITIES.)
http://www.morganquitno.com/cit05pop.htm
Baltimore has a higher unemployment rate--which matters even if you don't have to actually work there.
I have a friend who inherited a house in Baltimore but is still serving out her retirement in the DC area--she never gets to go out with friends/coworkers anymore, due to the constraints of the commute. Is that the quality of life you are speaking of?
Me, I spend 10 or 20 times as much time with friends as I do commuting. THAT is MY quality of life. How is that possible? Easy. GIVE UP YOUR CAR. Then you'll have 500 or 600 dollars a month more a month to spend on achieving a short commute. My commute is currently 4 MINUTES by bike. 20 minutes or so walking--did it today in the snow, and no one else made it in. On metro, it's one stop.
I have a nice living space, AND I get to spend time there, and not in some vehicle with H1N1 patients. And, my exercise is built into my commute (when there's no snow/ice) so I free up THAT time too.
And, if you think DC is "decaying", have you been to the U street corridor lately? Logan circle? The nationals ballpark neighborhood? Mt Vernon Square and Mass Ave corridor? Ballston Metro area or King Street metro area in the last few years? Remember what Gallery Place/Penn Quarter was like in 2002?
I think of Baltimore as "already decayed".
"VA Investor said - No one living in this region has a gun to their head. For whatever reason, they want to stay here."
We will see the drain as economy gets better....
@condo_buyer,
I know the arguments about all that matters is the monthly payment so lower rates makes it easier to leverage up; however, I would be extremely cautious of buying over 5.5x my income.
Personally, I think that's nuts . . . but everyone has their choices. Condo fees of 150-250/month, etc . . . wow.
Your threshold for risk is up there. Just b/c you can "afford" something doesn't mean you should do it.
While IR can continue to fall, the lower bound is pretty limited, the upper bound on rates is pretty high. If between the time you buy and sell rates rise to 7-8% (not a bad rate) you'd better hope incomes have risen quite a bit or you've paid off a good bit of the place. A person in your same situation 5 years down the road will not be able to make it work at the price you bought it for simply b/c of a rise in the IR, not at 5.5x income. In other words, low IR help when you buy, but will hurt when you sell; you want the reverse.
I'm not picking on you in the least, I'm just thinking wow <70k buying 385k . . . as long as people are willing (and banks let them) to do this, this sucker has got a ways to go. Shoot, I make a decent amount more than that and I shudder at 300k.
I do find the monthly payment argument sickening. Buy a 2k flat-screen TV for only 10/month. . . you still have to pay it back. But when the 2nd leg of this financial business hits, maybe we'll finally learn our lesson.
Me personally, if I'm going to leverage 5.5x I'm going to buy a mansion (go out in style) not a condo. But, as I've learned in the futures markets, a fool and his money are soon partied.
Everyone makes choices, so if you make it work, more power to ya; way too much risk for me.
Va_Investor,
Doesn't that anecdote confirm my rules? She applied for free lunch for her children. Surely she does not self-identify as "middle class."
I think my whole argument is that these TH communities are full of families or people like what you just described.
I'm sure your sister is a great person. I have nothing against her. I just don't think her lifestyle is what white collar workers usually deal with.
This area has a good balance of good jobs and lifestyle. If you think there are less expensive places to live that is certainly true. The jobs are not always there.
And in life there is usually more than one person to consider.
I remember driving through IN a while back and seeing a house for $30K (for sale sign actually had the price). You could pay that off for what downpayments are around here.
And do what?
When I lived in Santa Barbara prices were no where near median income. Same complaining.
This area seems like a bargain compared to that, however the lifestyle is not the same.
So there are always choices.
We bought a little over a year ago, and are happy living our life. No regrets. Price went down, is now coming back either way not going to bankrupt us.
Move to Europe and get a nice fixer upper cheap in Greece...article about it in the NYT today, all sorts of options...
Scott,
I agree that living in Baltimore and commuting to DC does not sound fun. That being said I feel you are sorta being silly about how the Baltimore region is doing.
Howard County, MD is a suburb of Baltimore. It is one of the richest counties in the country. It has Columbia which is sort of the Reston of Maryland in being an early planned town. Baltimore County (not to be confused with the city) and Anne Arundel County also are pretty nice. Perhaps you have never been to the suburbs of Baltimore.
The City of Baltimore has its bad neighborhoods but so does Washington. It also has its nice neighborhoods. You may or may not recall that Jenna Bush (daughter of our previous president) and her husband (son of a former lieutenant governor of Virginia) have taken residence in Baltimore. I have to imagine the neighborhood is nice given the wealth of their families.
5.5x gross income for a house purchase is nuts!!!
And its not a house, its a condo with condo fees.
Don't do it----rent!
FWIW I've visited this blog on and off for 3 years, almost buying in 2007, and still happily renting now. Instead of committing to more than I can afford for little in return, I have a daughter who is worth every penny.
Life = Family
Life != Mortgage Payment
Scott,
Some of the neighborhoods you list (such as U Street) are zoned to schools like Dunbar HS or Cardozo HS. I'm not allowed on this blog to call any school bad without being deemed a racist so I'll just post some quotes from a Washington Post article from a few years back:
Danielle Chappell had no reason to doubt she was a solid student. She earned decent grades, even scoring some A's in English and math, while balancing schoolwork with basketball, track and a spot on the dance team.
Then she graduated from Cardozo High School and arrived at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, where she bombed the placement tests so badly that she had to take remedial English and math. She failed the makeup math course twice before passing it. Low grades overall put her on academic probation. Finally, mid-sophomore year, she was forced to withdraw.
Chappell sometimes thinks back to the Cardozo math teacher who, instead of assigning algebra homework, would have students clip photos of motorcycles from magazines and do other projects unrelated to math. "I thought it was strange and weird," Chappell said, but she did not complain because the class was "an easy A."
The Washington Post surveyed Cardozo's Class of 2005 with those questions in mind, reaching 127 students or their families, just over half of the 243 who began as freshmen. Cardozo, which overlooks the city from a hill in Columbia Heights, was chosen because it falls between the highest- and lowest-performing schools in the District.
More than one third, or 49, of the students surveyed had dropped out of high school, often citing their inability to keep up, their need to get a job or the absence of efforts by school officials to keep them in. Three students are still in high school -- one at Cardozo.
Fifty-five are working, in jobs that include firefighter, carpet cleaner and parking attendant, but the vast majority are earning just about the minimum wage. Eighteen are unemployed.
Three students in the group are dead -- one from natural causes, one was fatally beaten by her boyfriend and the third was the victim of a distressingly common urban scenario. He was shot 19 times in a drive-by, his killer never found. One young man is in jail, awaiting trial on charges of armed robbery.
Add in that there is only one public college in DC: UDC. That's not a good college. Most middle class families cannot swing private schools so that's another reason why DC is a no go and Virginia and Maryland with its in-state colleges appeal to them.
Also Chancellor Michelle Rhee is engaged to the Mayor of Sacramento, CA. Rumor has it she will eventually move to CA to live with him once they are married. I don't think Mayor Fenty has the political capital anymore to appoint another chancellor who has been as effective. And even then no one is a miracle worker.
GTE & Mark It's okay. I graduated at 21 and gutted it out on Wall St for 3 years & came down here in the summer to work half time for an investment bank and do a graduate degree. After a 20% down payment (I got some good bonuses because I worked like hell), I still have more than enough to live on and still have good savings. When I go back to full time, my income goes up substantially. Incidentally, my monthly rent for my brother's 1 bed is $1,500 and he gave me a break. Most 1 beds in the building are rented for $1,700. If you want to talk monthly numbers I will be paying about $2,000 for pit & condo fee. That is $1,400 less per month than I was paying for a studio in Manhattan.
Va_Investor said
She most definitely is middle class. She has a BA and works in a white collar job.
...
She makes less than 40K and is over50.
...
The ten year period from mid 20's to mid 30's or 30 to 40 should be a time a great career strides, promotions, income jumps, etc. At least in my mind.
These are from three different comments of yours. I think you are being inconsistent.
Va_Investor,
You do realize your sister could not afford a TH in Fairfax nowadays...
Va_Investor,
You don't offend me because you think everything I think.
Va_Investor said
Do you think her house is in shambles? Does she throw trash out in the yard? Is her car on blocks? What? No front teeth?
I do not think any of those things.
She is engaged to an Attorney.
Where does the attorney live? Where do they plan to live after they marry?
Sorry VA_Investor, but I agree with TBW that if your sister is applying for free/reduced lunches for her kid(s) then she is not "middle class", not financially. I'm sure she is a great person and it sounds like she's done a great job providing for those kid(s) despite a below average income for this area.
Va_Investor said
I see no observation to make other than you come across as someone who is an arrogant snob with entitlement issues. I don't mean to offend you, but I don't know what world you live in.
I live in a world where I've met people who live as far out as Fredericksburg or Leesburg to get the American dream of a single family home. I see this all the time at work. My friends see this all the time at work.
If THs and condos were good enough for most Americans we would never have needed to expand the definition of "Northern Virginia" beyond Fairfax County.
http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/northern%20virginia/default.asp
VDOT is spending millions on projects like widening I-66 in Gainesville or widening Route 7 or the Silver Line.
None of these projects would need to be done if middle class Americans thought a condo or TH was good enough. There have always been people interested in living in these outer areas but not the numbers you see today. It is almost all funneled by people wanting a SFH.
Every day you subsidize with tax dollars "arrogant snobs with entitlement issues" who want their family to have a SFH on all of these infrastructure projects. The road construction and maintenance expenditures (along with mass transit construction and maintenance) for "arrogant snobs with entitlement issues" is enormous. All because since after World War II our nation decided the single family home was ideal.
Va_Investor said
I always check out the cars to get an idea of the demographics. I'd bet many people would say you are a snob, flat out.
Eighty-six percent of all prestige or luxury makes of motor vehicles are driven by people who are not millionaires. [Article
Because of auto loans luxury cars are not really what they used to be.
Survey
Who is the snob here?
TBW: People who make $70k should be able to live in a single family home.
Va_Investor: People who make $70k should not be able to live in a single family home.
Va_Investor said
This is just a personal example of a lower income person happily raising kids (only one left at home now) in a TH. Money is tight but would be worse (impossible) if she had to pay rent which would be about double.
How do you know she was happy about it as opposed to just resigned to the fact that was all she can afford?
I suspect when your sister visits your McMansion in Reston she puts a happy face about her situation.
You also have avoided the question of where she and her fiance will live after the marriage.
TBW, I have sympathy for your arguments. I do think it's problematic when people who earn so much that the Congress thinks they should pay high income taxes can't afford what is considered a modest home elsewhere in the country. In the long run, employers consider such things when deciding where to open new locations, because they don't want to have difficulty attracting employees or pay extremely high salary premiums when they could get well-qualified workers in much less expensive, but still desirable, communities.
I do think you ought to think long and hard about moving to a midwestern city. Having grown up in the midwest I can tell you that there are some very nice places to live, particularly if, as you do, people want to raise a family. Of course you will have fewer potential partners to choose from. You can move to Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, maybe Minneapolis (though this week you are probably reminded why you don't want to move there), etc., and pay $250K or less and get a 4 bedroom, 2+ bath house in a good school district. Or you could pay somewhat more and get a snazzier or more elegant place, or one in a more upscale neighborhood. You would pay higher property taxes and a bit more in utilities, but most of the other living costs would be comparable or less there.
There is much less to do in those cities than here, and most of it costs something (unlike the free museums) and is oriented toward family-friendly activities. But there are great restaurants, sports facilities, arts venues, live music, pro teams, etc. Unemployment can be a problem, and the weather is (most of the time) worse. People are not as well-educated in most other cities. Etc., etc., etc. What things matter to you more, and what less? There really are alternatives.
My point is that if having a nice home and a middle class lifestyle (or better) on a lawyer's salary is important to you, it really is possible for you to have it elsewhere. The cost-of-living gap is greater now than it was when I moved here.
Oh yes, and if you can find work in and want to live in a smaller town, Madison, WI and Bloomington, IN are wonderful places.
I realize that one of your points is that you should not have to move in order to have the middle class lifestyle you want, and I am not disagreeing. I am just pointing out that, contrary to what some people in the east think, the midwest is not a vast wasteland, particularly if what one really values is a nice house, a big yard, less traffic, a somewhat less stressful life, and some big city amenities.
Ok... two things.
First, there is no way someone making less than $40k a year with a family and applying for free lunches is middle class, especially if they are in their 50s at what should be their peak earning years.
Second off, a SFH does not define middle class. TBW you need to get the idea out of your head that all middle class people live in SFHs, it isn't true.
Most of America has the luxury of a great deal of space and good road networks. This has allowed cities to sprawl and sprawl and sprawl.
There is no question that in many US cities the overwhelming majority of middle class and upper middle class families live in SFHs, but that is not universally true in the US and it is the exception to the rule worldwide.
I agree that DC's cost of living is far too high for what you get. DC is hardly a cultural hub or an area that offers a high quality of life, but it does have jobs and that is a strong argument. (Besides, many many people are just too stubborn and fearful to move to another city.)
I'm going to delete the personal comments that I posted. They seem to have derailed the discussion rather than illustrate my point that middle class (or lower) people can be content and financially secure by owning a TH.
If the development trend of the past 20-30yrs continues (and why wouldn't it), the far out suburbs of today and the exurbs will gradually become more urban/suburban.
I clearly remember when Franklin Farm (Herndon) was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere. Sterling? Forget it. We packed a lunch and drove out from Tyson's to investigate a new TH community (Countryside) that had places we could afford, starting in the 60's.
With the ongoing boom along the Dulles Corridor, demand for these once outer-burbs will continue to increase. It's clearly far far easier to live out there when one's job is in Reston/Herdon/Tysons or even Loudoun.
We would have to see a population out-flow to stem this tide (tidal wave). Some tenants of mine just bought a house in Ashburn.(:
I was looking at the last Census Bureau Map for all Counties of the US showing population increases. This was for 1990-2000 and we had a large increase regionwide. It will be a year or two before we have new numbers, but the good old UHaul stats are updated yearly.
Va Investor You are right about what use to be the boonies and what is now suburbia. When I courted my wife (yep, that's what we called it) in the 1950s, she lived in Fairfax near what is now George Mason University. It took me forever to get from Arlington to Fairfax and I could only manage it a few times a month. When she started to teach in Vienna, Tyson's Corner was just a four corner crossroads with a gas station and some stores and businesses you would find in a more rural setting. When I was growing up in the 1930s and 1940s Arlington still had a lot of farms and one of the big dairy farms spread out to an area near the East Falls Church Metro and Rt. 66. Remember that Arlington developed as a summer vacation spot for people from Washington. At the turn of the last century and into the 1920s people took trolley cars to Carlin Springs, the Luna Amusement Park (where Westover is now located). As the area continues to expand, areas that seemed far out are becoming more urbanized and new areas are replacing them. One of the reasons real estate is more valuable inside the Beltway is because there is a finite amount of land inside the Beltway, unless people get more creative about filling in the Potomac. Once you get outside the Beltway land is infinite and builders can build to the next city. Of course this is the view of someone who lives in a condo and who is surrounded by some of the most expensive condos in the area: Abdo Lofts, Turnberry Towers, Waterview (most expensive condo in the area sold there last year at $5.6 million). And then there are the townhouses overlooking the Iwo Jima Memorial that are in the $1 million plus range. This all in Rosslyn which used to be filled with auto repair shops and other light industry before WWII. Whose to say that the Fairfax townhouse your sister "could no longer afford to buy" could become the pied a terre for a wealthy someone 100 years from now who works in the edge city of Aldie. If you saw Old Town Alexandria in the 1940s before it became Olde Towne Alexandria, it was filled with blue collar workers living in what they considered beaten up old townhouses from the previous centuries and who worked at the Ford Plant (now home to $2 million dollar plus townhouses), the Torpedo Factory (the big art center)and the shipping port Alexandria used to be and the Potomac Railroad Yards. Bottom line is that people can't always live where they want to. If they want to live close in and don't make much money they can rent, buy a less expensive condo and raise their families the way 90% of the people in the world do, move farther out and buy a townhouse or get a job farther out (the edge city of Tyson's or the Herndon/Reston corridor) and buy a single family house in today's version of the boonies. These people can also move to another part of the country to have a more middle class lifestyle by living in a single family home. However, most of the people I know who don't make much money came to the Washington area because job security is better here than in pretty much any other place in the country or the world.
On patrick.net they highlighted an article discussing how many people from Orange County are leaving for Texas.
The comments there are pretty much like reading the comments here except replace Northern Virginia with southern California.
In some ways it's nice to be reminded we are not the only area dealing with this struggle.
Ace,
I agree the Midwest is a nice area to live.
I think I will be okay in the end I think so long as Robert's V recovery does not come true.
I'm making more than $70k. I just used that as an example of what I felt was a very respectable salary but lower than median HH income and the paradox of how people in that income bracket are treated here.
I have a lot of friends who are in that salary range who are considering the Midwest, North Carolina, Balitmore, Pennsylvania (non-Philly areas), and so on.
I had been counseling them to wait a few more years for home prices to go back to normal here but perhaps I've been giving them bad advice and they should move. Another minus of living in a high cost of living area if you will lose a friend or two each year to the high cost of living!
reecon,
I agree with most of what you said. I do have one issue with this point you made (and dc2 made):
buy a less expensive condo and raise their families the way 90% of the people in the world do
In Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (other former Britich colonies) they live like we do with single family homes being a dominant form of housing. I think that is true for a few other countries as well.
There have been multiple articles about how China and India are developing in a very "American" style with single family homes and auto centric living.
Part of the reason gas is expected to increase in price is higher demand from China and India. A lot of Arab nations also are developing in sprawl fashion -- gas is supercheap in many of those countries. I remember watching a news show about central Americans in the DC area and how many of them are sending money back home and having American style homes built in their homeland (often leading to an incongruous opulent home next to much more modest home because the men living in the USA earn so much more than those who stayed at home.)
I see no evidence that the Western European-Manhattan model is spreading and instead a lot of evidence the American sprawl model is spreading.
tbw,
So employment centers aren't being created outside the core city? How does sprawl help your contention that Vienna, Oakton and N.Arl will become more affordable?
You need an overall declining employment base and declining population. What are the chances?
Perhaps you are giving your friends bad advice today. I told friends not to buy in 2003-2004 forward, but my advice changed in later 2008.
Ah, but I was wrong! They should have bought in '03 and '04 AND sold in '05! I'm not a day trader. And I don't have a crystal ball. And my friends weren't interested in flipping stuff.
Reecon, loved your post about the history of the area. Thanks.
TBW, yes, I understood that your $70K was just an illustration, and that even making considerably more on a single income, it's now very tough to buy what would be considered a modest house here within a short commute to DC if you must also have a very good public school.
I think the question of how other people live is influenced by whether they are in developed countries and whether they are in big cities. In my (limited) travels to such places, professional people living outside the biggest cities do often have modest SFHs. In some cases, they have an apartment in the city where they work then have a SFH where they live on the weekends and part of summers. Obviously, in less developed countries the vast majority of people are far less fortunate.
Gee I love it when people try to move the argument to shore up their position.
We were talking about Baltimore for CHEAPNESS, and the commute to available jobs in DC.
Now suddenly we're talking about SCHOOL QUALITY, and referring to the wealthiest (and presumably then the most expensive) counties?
Gee, why does my neck hurt?
So how'd I do?
I know it's a week away from coming out, but predictions for January's MRIS stats?
Based on the inventory numbers in Harriet's other link, I predict inventory will be down sharply 2-8% around the region aside from Manassas areas. Median prices will be up YoY, sales down, but in the all important MoM category I don't expect much movement, the median could go either way, but I doubt it will have moved by more than 5%. More specifically, I expect FFX County will be down from December's $365k, but still above November's $350k."
Well, it was exactly equal to November's $350k, not above it.
I agree with all of Harriet's assessments at the top of the post. One thing to add is that the MOI for Alex/Arl/Fairfax is finally back up closer to 6 months. I'd say that staying under 6 months of inventory (despite all my qualms with this measure as not being apples to apples at all) in January is pretty darn good. I expect it to creep over the 6 month mark in February as there are fewer contracts in December/January and more listings starting up for the spring selling season. Don't get too excited folks if it does happen, as it will mostly be a result of disconnect between sales that result from inventory 1-2 months earlier and inventory which is new listings now. But if it exceeds something like 8, or we otherwise see a huge spike in inventory be concerned. (or elated, whichever is appropriate).
I'm now only getting the frankly listings for my neighborhood, and had been thinking, oh geez, these are sitting for a while with no takers. Hadn't realized that I simply wasn't getting the "under contract" notifications. Dude, Jeremy? is right, SFH's are still generally going under in less than two weeks. The split-levels are sitting, and the shorts aren't going as quickly (they're not at very much of a discount) but capes, colonials, and ramblers are all available less than 14 days before getting snatched up. (Unless the location is really bad). But I was surprised, a few that I wouldn't have considered simply because of being on the major cut-through are under contract in under two weeks. It's like October never ended.
Will the frenzy die when the $8k/$6.5k finally ends? Will there be any sellers or buyers left by then? This is crazy, these prices are really too high, one can only hope that the sellers are realistically accepting easy 95% of list offers early in the process or something.
Correction, split-foyers. I think if they were split-levels there might be less bias against them.
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