With spring on the horizon, Virginia’s real-estate professionals seem a somewhat more upbeat bunch.
Responses to the Virginia Realtors’ trade group’s monthly “flash survey” of the membership found a more positive view of both current and future conditions, following a year that saw the marked whiplash between being red hot at the beginning and stone cold at the end.
A total of 562 members of the organization took part in the monthly survey, conducted Jan. 25-30, including 389 who had taken part in at least one transaction in the last 30 days.
In terms of buyer activity, the organization’s 0-to-100 index stood at 39 at the end of January, up from 24 a month before. That’s down from a peak of 84 last March, but shows that buyers apparently are coming back into the market after the initial shock of higher interest rates wore off.
While 38 percent of respondents said the level of buyer activity in their community was “low or very low,” some 17 percent rated it high or very high – a vast improvement from recent months.
Respondents reported that 32 percent of buyers in the past month were first-timers, up from 4 percent a month before.
About 19 percent of transactions were all-cash sales, down from 22 percent. Those often are developers or “flippers” buying up properties in hopes of making a short-term financial gain.
Not all the news was moving in the right direction in January. Buyers receiving more than listing price represented 24 percent of the overall market, compared to 26 percent a month before, while buyers received an average of 1.3 offers before a sale, unchanged from December and down from a peak of 6.6 in March.
In terms of seller activity, the 0-to-100 scorecard stood at 19 in January, up ever so slightly from 17 in December. Five percent of respondents said seller activity was high to very high in their communities; while nothing to write home about, it was up from 2 percent a month before. A total of 68 percent of respondents said market activity among sellers was low to very low.
Asked to rate where they expected buyer activity in their communities to be in three months’ time, 28 percent said they felt it would be strong, up from 12 percent a month before. The index for three months out stood at 52 on the 0-to-100 scale, up from 38.
Getting sellers enthused enough to put homes on the market, however, may be a bit of a problem. Only 12 percent of respondents expected seller activity to be strong three months into the future, up from 7 percent a month before but still tepid. The scorecard result on the 0-to-100 scale was 37, up from 33 a month before.
Realtors are not bullish on a quick turnaround in prices – only 22 percent of respondents said they’d be rising three months out, while 44 percent expect falling prices and 33 percent predict stability.
While the 22 percent who think prices will be rising three months down the road is relatively low, it marks the best reading since last June.
For full data, see the Website at www.virginiarealtors.org.
