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Real estate market tilts toward sellers
A glimmer of hope could be on the horizon for Loudoun homeowners looking to sell.
Since January, the number of houses on the market has decreased and homes are sitting on the market for fewer days, tipping the market toward sellers.
In January, homes spent an average of 107 days on the market. That number fell to 83 in April. Based on the number of active listings as of May 1, the inventory of homes on the market dropped to a four-month supply -- "a figure not seen in the last three years and one that clearly signals an end to the buyer's market," said Rosemary deButts, marketing consultant with the Dulles Area Association of Realtors.
"When the inventory is low, it indicates a seller's market," she said, adding that inventory is a highly volatile and easily changed indicator of the market's health.
While fewer homes are entering the market, more people are buying. The number of homes sold increased from 292 in January to 393 in April.
More listings also are now "healthy" sales, rather than foreclosures or short sales. In April, 370 listings were marked as foreclosures or short sales, down by 32 percent from the two-year high in January. At that time, 545 homes were foreclosures or short sales.
At the same time as foreclosures have dropped, sales prices have increased.
From January to April, the median price of all homes sold in a given month, increased more than $20,000 -- from $291,000 in January to $315,000 in March and April, according to deButts. This was pushed in part by a growth in sales in April in the $400,000 price range, a 6 percent increase over the sales in that bracket during the first three months of this year. Meanwhile, sales of homes less than $200,000 dropped by 6 percent.
The current median price, however, is 13 percent below the overall 2008 median of $346,000, deButts said.
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