Click Here to See the Home Sales Report for July
Spring Turns To Summer With Homes Sales Numbers Up;
Buyers Get ‘Moving’ to Settle in before School Starts,
Reports the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors®
Fairfax – “As we enter into our summer real estate market, Realtors® expect a possible slow down, but this July is one of those few exceptions,” said Northern Virginia Association of Realtors® Chairman of the Board Bob Adamson. “Our NVAR July sales totals increased 2 percent compared to last July, with 2,251 homes sold, but July’s inventory remained leaner than last year, down by 12 percent.”
"Buyers are looking to be settled and moved before the new school year starts,"
It just seems to make sense that if moving is on the radar of a homeowner, now is a great time to get started since house listings are at a premium, Adamson pointed out.
“What is interesting is that the average sales price (SP) to original list price (OLP) ratio is at an incredible 98 percent in our region;” said NVAR Board Member Christina Macro. “This means that sellers are getting almost what they ask for. I do think that this is a function of pricing properly. When a property is priced well and shows well, we see stable or increasing ratios of SP to OLP.
“It seems that our spring market has extended through July, and we are seeing it with buyer demand and steady improvements in the overall market,” she said.
“Buyers are looking to be settled and moved before the new school year starts,” Macro explained.
No threat of a near-term interest rate hike helps. Said NVAR CEO Ryan Conrad, “According to the national data, the economy’s steady performance could keep the Federal Reserve on course to delay the next interest rate hike. For the latter part 2017, economists project that the Fed could take a ‘wait-and-see approach,’ and crunch numbers methodically before raising rates. This delay could spur Northern Virginia homebuyers to secure value-priced mortgages if they can find that right home.”
July 2017 Regional Home Sales Compared to July 2016: Northern Virginia
The Northern Virginia Association of Realtors® reports on July 2017 home sales activity for Fairfax and Arlington counties, the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church and the towns of Vienna, Herndon and Clifton.
A total of 2,251 homes sold in July 2017, a 2 percent increase above July 2016 home sales of 2,209.
Active listings decreased in July by about 12 percent compared with 2016. This past July, there were 4,375 active listings, compared with 4,991 homes available in July 2016. The average days on market (DOM) for homes in July 2017 was 36 days, a decrease of about 12 percent compared to the 41 DOM for homes in July 2016.
The average home sale price rose to $591,500 from last July’s average of $565,567. This was a 4.59 percent increase.
The median sold price of homes this July, which was $512,500, rose by less than one percentage point compared to the median price of $510,000 in July 2016.
The 1,981 new pending home sales in Northern Virginia in July fell compared with 2,030 new contracts pending in July last year. Total pending sales in July were down by 11.28 percent, to 2,563, compared with 2,889 pending contracts in July 2016.