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Health & Fitness

Real Estate Market Shift Equals Opportunity Or Reality

The real estate market in Northern Virginia is continuing to experience a subtle shift. While we’re still seeing competitive situations and multiple offers on some homes in some areas, other areas are seeing average time on market as high as 6 months and housing inventory of more than a year. If you’re thinking of buying or selling your home, you will definitely want to take a look at the statistics on our blog– because numbers tell a story!

The area and price range you’re looking in will vastly affect what strategy you employ.

If you’re looking to buy in Great Falls for example, then you have a HUGE amount of leverage when making an offer. Currently, there are 224 homes for sale and the average time those homes have been on the market is SIX MONTHS. There is also a FIFTEEN MONTH supply of housing right now. That means if homes sell at the rate they have over the past 30 days, then it would take 15 months to sell all of the homes currently on the market. That spells OPPORTUNITY for buyers. And it spells REALITY for Sellers. It’s no longer the time to price aggressively to “see what the market will bear.”

Find out what's happening in McLeanwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

(Search Homes For Sale in Great Falls)

On the other hand, if you’re looking in Burke, you’ll find the complete opposite. Average days on market for active listings is less than two months. And there is only a 2 month supply of housing. Less than 3 months housing supply means that Burke is still experiencing a Seller’s Market. What does this mean? Sellers may still be able to push the envelope; and Buyers will likely find themselves competing for homes. This means Buyers need to adjust their contract strategy accordingly – being prepared to offer more, use an escalation clause, drop contingencies, offer a free rentback or a number of other strategies.

Find out what's happening in McLeanwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

(Search Homes For Sale in Burke)

When you look at the chart above – what you’ll see is that in general, the higher price areas (like Great Falls & McLean) are starting to see longer marketing times and a much larger housing supply. While the more affordable areas (like Burke & Springfield) are still firecely competitive.

Areas like Vienna, Oakton & Ashburn are experiencing what we call a “W” Market. Buyers in these markets are extremely price sensitive and there are pockets of Buyer & Seller submarkets embedded within each – some Seller’s, some Buyer’s, some Balanced Markets.. As an example, we recently put 3 listings on the market in Vienna between $800,000 and $900,000. One had multiple offers and sold in 3 days over list price. The others are still on the market. We are seeing Buyers step back and make much more considered decisions – sometimes not even looking at homes they feel are overpriced, and/or not being able to look past issues like dated kitchens. This means Sellers must be much more on target when setting that initial price in order to end up at the top of the W, and not at the bottom.

(Search Homes For Sale in Vienna) (Search Homes For Sale in Oakton) (Search Homes For Sale in Ashburn)

For more info about YOUR neighborhood or the neighborhood you WANT to live incontact The Belt Team at (703) 242-3975. We’ll help create a personal strategy for YOUR market. regardless of whether you’re buying or selling, you deserve the BEST Real Estate Team in Northern VA!


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