Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/29/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/27/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/25/2011

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Northern Virginia Weekend Bits Bucket 4/23-4/24, 2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/20/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/18/2011

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S&P lowers outlook on US debt to negative. And, happy tax day.

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/15/2011

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New from Rasmussen 4/17/2011:

"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 15% of homeowners expect the value of their home to go up in the next year while 33% expect the opposite and think the value of their home will decline.

The current figures reflect more pessimism than a month ago when 19% were optimistic and 30% pessimistic about the value of their home over the next year."

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/14/2011

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Hmm... Prices of new homes in China's capital plunged 26.7% month-on-month in March.

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/12/2011

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Northern Virginia March Housing Sales

Northern Virginia's March 2011 housing sales were down 14% YoY, and median prices were up .2%. The average days on the market increased by 33% to 69 days.

(The above statistics include Alexandria City, Arlington County, Fairfax City, Fairfax County, Falls Church City, Fauquier County, Loudoun County, Manassas City, Manassas Park City, and Prince William County).

As I was updating this month's data, I noticed that MRIS had extensively revised its data back to about 2005. Prior to 2005, they still use their old charts, which haven't changed. I'm including two side-by-side spreadsheets -- the one on the left is the data as it now exists at the MRIS site, and the one on the right is the data as I recorded it last year from MRIS. Small changes have been noticeable since they revised their website a few months ago, but this month they were so extensive that I felt I had to show both. I can't explain it nor do I have access to any source material -- I just use what's at MRIS.

Obviously, there was something wrong with the old data, but I didn't notice at the time. Fairfax County, for example, showed 5,278 active listings at MRIS last year, but Virginia MLS showed about 2,600 on March 15th. This year, last year's active listings for Fairfax was corrected to show 2,918.

I sometimes provide inventory statistics from Virginia MLS here, so we were better off trusting those for inventory than MRIS, it seems.

Here's a link to the spreadsheet since it's not possible to see it all here.

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/11/2011

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MRIS March sales data is out. I'll post the spreadsheet later today. Year-over-year sales were down 14%, median prices were mostly flat -- up .2%, and days on the market increased 33%.

An observation from The Atlantic's Megan McArdle, who recently bought a house in the D.C. neighborhood of Eckington:

"The housing market still isn't clearing. In my neighborhood, almost nothing is coming on the market even though we're well into spring, and half of what does appear is either utterly decrepit, or wildly overpriced, or both....I suspect that the first-time homebuyer tax credit, rather than helping matters, has simply made them worse."

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/8/2011

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Home lenders shed workers as mortgage rates climb.

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/5/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/1/2011

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