Arlington VA Home Sales spring 2010 | Arlington Dirt Real Estate

Spring 2010 Real Estate Wrap for Arlington Virginia

June 22nd, 2010 Categories: Arlington Dirt, Market Stats

With the arrival of summer yesterday came scorching hot temps that make the blizzards of this past winter difficult to even remember. It also marks the passing of the “spring real estate market.” I’ve always said summer is busy around here, too – but today, let’s look at the last 13 weeks of activity and see if we can figure out what the heck happened!

spring 2010 Arlington Virginia home sale stastics

OK, people, follow along, the GREEN is 2010 – notice what happened about 5 weeks into spring (more importantly it would’ve been right around APRIL 30) – we experienced a HUGE drop-off in ratified contracts! For anyone who believes that other factors are driving the market right now (rates, supply, reasonable sellers, to name a few) I beg to differ. Now if you look at year over year, we are still 13.6% ahead of where we were last year at this time and we are actually 28% ahead of the ratified contracts during the same period in 2008 – so having said that, we are still in a more active market; I would actually contend that we simply MOVED buyers forward in their cycle and that such a drop off is a natural occurrance.

So what now? Well, I have a few random thoughts -

I’ve seen some properties advertised as “missed the tax credit deadline? This seller is willing to give an $8,000 credit at settlement” – that’s one solution.

Another reality is that not everyone is eligible for the tax credit anyway – where are all THOSE buyers now? People do you not understand that these interest rates are likely to go up? We will not have 5% interest rates around forever – the purchase power 1 % of interest rate is HUGE!

And lastly, no sense crying over spilled milk – it’s over – so let’s get back to the business of buyers needing to buy homes to live in whether or not someone gives them something. We all need shelter – a roof over our heads – if you can afford it, if you’ll be around the area for a while and, well, you can afford it, now is a perfect time.

So wherever it is that interests you, whether it’s Arlington or McLean or Alexandria, Reston or wherever, let me know if I can help out. I have some excellent resources who can help make your buying experience exceptional!

Happy Tuesday

Jennifer

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 11:46 am and is filed under Arlington Dirt, Market Stats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.