Comments 1 - 3 of 167 Next » Last » Search these comments
Who posted this thread?
Reston? Fairfax county baby. My old stomping grounds. We looked in Reston when we first moved to DC. No offense, but didn't like it at all. Extremely cramped. We looked at one deveopment back in 2000 maybe it was Herndon. Small house, small property on a hill. Could look off the porch and see at least 80 roof tops all the same. Dismal playroom in the basement with no windows.
You want to know about inventory in Fairfax? See NVAR.com and click on "market stats." The numbers for Fairfax are worrisome. about 50% inventory increase from last year.
By the way, when you hear "things slow down in August", then just look to the previous August. The number I gave above is year over year. Sure, things slow down from May to August, but August of 04 to August of 05 is instructive.
My opiinion? Fairfax peaked in February/March 04. It's now on a down slope, and I expect flat out panic in the spring, when everybody who has any inclination to get out will have seen the winter heating prices, the slowdowns accross the economy, the inflation, . . . . If they don't know it's time to get out now, they will in 5 months. Check the inventory numbers in May 06 versus May 05 - I'll bet they're double.
By the way, no offense again, but in no way on God's diminishingly green earth is Reston a "short" ride from DC.
Reston is a brutal nightmare of a commute into and out of DC, and it's getting worse every year. We ended up located 20 mintues closer and I still despised the commute to downtown.
Sorry to spam. That peak in Fairfax, IMO, is in 05, not in 04.
Comments 1 - 3 of 167 Next » Last » Search these comments
I live in Reston, Virginia, a short ride outside of Washington, D.C. On April 19th, 2005 I visited a FSBO townhouse with an asking price of $375,000, which sold in 2001 to the present owners (if they haven't sold it yet) for $115,000. This finally convinced me that prices were truly out of whack. On that day there were 82 units on the market in my town.
I've been watching inventory steadily rise, and the MLS currently lists 409 units, nearly 500% of what was offered for sale 5 months ago.
Now, I hear that, to one degree or another, increases in inventory and slowdowns in sales are typical after the Spring, and I didn't obsessively keep track of the market until this year.
How out of whack is this change? What's "normal"? I don't trust the months-of-inventory averages the realtors post because I notice houses being pulled from the MLS and relisted and I believe this counts as "two" listings where the first pulled listing is counted as "sold". So is this indicating that investors are dumping their stock on the market? What about in your towns, anyone noticing anything similar?
#housing