Contract Writing Activity in Arlington Virginia – NEWS FLASH… October 2008
October 3rd, 2008 Categories: Arlington Dirt, Home Buying, Home Selling, Market Stats
Lately, it seems that the entire country is heavily focused on the financial crisis we are currently facing – most especially as it relates to obtaining mortgage financing. People are asking me how this news is affecting the real estate market. Just about every day someone wants to talk about how this has affected real estate transactions, business, prices, etc… anecdotally, if you have a down payment, good credit and income, not much has changed.
So I started wondering if in fact this has affected the number of homes going under contract in the past weeks. This morning I sat down and did some research on Arlington County. In fact, since the beginning of January, 2008, the LOWEST number of contracts written in any given week was the week of January 12th with just 33 contracts written. There was a dip last week (week of 9/19) which produced the 2nd lowest week with only 36 contracts written and I have to believe that it was a direct result of the bailout news.
The highest weekly contracts written occurred the week of June 21st with 65 contracts written. The average covering the 9 month period was just under 50 contracts/month. Here are the actual numbers graphed as well as a 4–week rolling average to better see a trend line:
I believe what we’re seeing is normal seasonality. Although the trend line heads down pretty steeply over the past few weeks, this week (the past 7 days), more contracts were written than in the previous 5 weeks time. So go figure…
What I do believe is that the market has knee-jerk reactions to global economic news and the general availability of mortgage money, the scare of whether or not the sky is falling in and how it will or does affect their financial position.
Any way you look at it, there will be people who need to buy and sell homes. In closing, is this a good time to sell? It’s not bad – with 40–50 homes going under contract each week (remember that’s upwards of 200/month) there ARE people buying homes. Is this a good time to buy? Well, if you have to buy, why not buy when the prices are fair, interest rates are low and sellers will negotiate? That sounds a lot better than the frenzy of just 4 years ago!
Please remember, always be responsible – do the right thing for yourself and/or your family. Be financially conservative and you’ll be way better off in the end.
I’m always happy to discuss this or anything else real estate related.
Happy Friday!
Jennifer
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Interesting numbers Jennifer. I’m seeing similar stats for my market in Pennsylvania.
Hello Jennifer, first let me start my saying sorry about your Nationals. This was a great blog, just proving the point that “the sky is not falling”. Keep up the great work. David
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