My wife and I love to spend time on our screened in porch. Last weekend we discussed solutions for keeping pollen off our porch cushions and need to come up with a plan sooner rather than later. The first official day of spring was Tuesday March 19th, so I am happy to report that the real estate market realizes it is spring time as well. While we don’t have this month’s numbers in yet, based on what we have experienced over the last few weeks our local real estate market is definitely “springing.” Here are the numbers from REIN (our local MLS) from last month: As you can see, we had ..read more

As we review the numbers and trends over the last couple of months we are glad to report that we have good news for both buyers and sellers. Take a look at the numbers in the chart below. We’ll detail the positives we see for buyers and sellers in the following paragraph.  Buyers should be glad to see that interest rates are still down over a point from the fall and active listings (the numbers of homes on the market for sale) are up over 8% when comparing January 2023 to January 2024. The median days on the market was longer than a month for the first time in over 3 years, and ..read more

Last January we decided to run a trivia contest to guess the medium sales price for 2023 across Hampton Roads and offered to donate $100 to the charity of the winner’s choice. Joey’s guess was $331,400 and the final number was $330,000 so he was the closest. Congrats to Joey and to ForKids, the charity he picked. We will run the same contest again this year, so see below for the details.  As you can see in this chart from the Real Estate Information Network (REIN, our local MLS), the median sales price continues to increase (it was $312,000 in 2022). In this chart ..read more

I was dreaming all December of snow falling for a white Christmas that we definitely did not get, but at least the interest rates have been falling over the last two months. Here is a chart from the St Louis Fed showing the 30-year mortgage rates since August 1st. As you can see, interest rates have dropped over a point during the last two months, and that is good news for both buyers and sellers. This chart from the Real Estate Information Network (REIN, our local MLS) shows that the number of homes selling are still lower than last year, but the median sales price is up almos ..read more

Last week the Federal Reserve Board did not raise the Federal Funds Rate but it hinted that it will do so later this year. After the announcement, the stock market went down and the 30-year mortgage rate went up. Last month we evaluated the impact of the current 30-year mortgage rates (above 7%) on the local market (read that newsletter here). Because it takes 30-60 days to close on homes under contract, we concluded that real evidence would not be available for a couple of months.  Here is the chart from the Real Estate Information Network (REIN, our local MLS). As you can see ..read more

August 2023 Over the last few weeks, the national 30-year mortgage rates are averaging over 7%. As you can see in the chart to the right, other than a couple of weeks in November 2022, rates have not been this high in almost two decades. The chart is from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank showing the 30-year mortgage average rate since 2002. The big question is, are rates now high enough to slow the market down? I don’t believe that we will have a firm answer for several months. It takes 30 to 60 days to close on a house once it is under contract, so October will be the soones ..read more

We traveled to Oregon, the home state of Jean Cross (Harry’s mom, Lee’s Grandmother), and found it much hotter than we remembered! The weather is being blamed on a heat dome, and after seeing this chart, courtesy of the Real Estate Information Network (REIN our local MLS), it looks like our local market is in a heat dome as well: Don’t let the double-digit decreases in the active listings, pending sales, and settled sales fool you, the median sales price went up almost 6% when comparing June 2022 to June 2023. The median sales price increased almost 3% from May 2023 ($335,000) to June 20 ..read more

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we think the sales trends for this summer are going to be very similar to the summer trends of 2021 and 2022. Fewer homes overall are being sold but those that go on the market are still selling fast. The average number of days on market is still just 11 and, most importantly, the month’s supply of inventory remains very low at 1.37. A balanced market is between 5 and 7 months, so the Hampton Roads market is still very much a seller’s market. As you can see from the chart below, courtesy of the Real Estate Information Network (REIN our local MLS ..read more

Summer doesn’t officially start until the summer solstice on June 20, but I (Lee) consider the start of summer to be the week after Memorial Day. The last day of school has either already arrived or is right around the corner and the lightning bugs are flying around. Summer is my favorite time of year. It stays light longer, you don’t have a big push to get homework done or kids out the door in the morning, houses sell well, and overall I think folks are happier.   Sellers have had a lot to be happy about year round for the last few years, and this summer should keep s ..read more

Still Half Full For several months we have emphasized that, despite the doom and gloom in the media about the national real estate market, our local market is still doing fine. In fact, across Hampton Roads we are still in a strong seller’s market.   The numbers from the Real Estate Information Network (REIN our local MLS) show that the median sales price continues to climb when comparing month to month and year over year numbers. The median sales price in February 2023 was $316,650 and increased to $320,000 in March 2023. Last year, the median sales was $300,000 in March 2022. The c ..read more