The Latest Loudoun County Housing Inventory Statistics

The number of homes for sale in Loudoun County (and the entire DC metro area) is definitely either down or trending down. Let’s look at the following charts showing inventory levels of single family homes and town homes in the Sterling, Ashburn, Leesburg and South Riding/Chantilly areas:

(Note: These are new interactive flash charts – feel free to play around with them, move the slider around, etc., and let me know what you think)

Sterling

Ashburn

Leesburg

South Riding/Chantilly

Sterling Single Family Home Median Price Up $70K

The median price of single family homes in Sterling (20164, 20165, 20166 zip codes) has gone up an astonishing $70K since April. Talk about a roller coaster of a ride for median prices in Sterling – they have been in a free fall since the market turned in 2005, hit $260K in April, shot up to about $380K and came back down to $335K.

If there was ever a great example of what supply vs demand means to median prices, Sterling is it. Check out how median prices starting coming back down at the very same time that inventory started to increase (July 1).

Sterling Single Family Home Median Price – up $70K since April

Sterling Single Family Home Inventory – up 25 percent since July

What will median prices do going forward? We’ll have to see whether inventory continues to go up, plateau or go down.

P.S. Check back tomorrow for Ashburn’s median price and inventory levels.

Sterling Housing Market Update

Here’s a look at what’s going on with the Sterling housing market (all zip codes)…

Sterling Median Price

The median price has been falling in Sterling since the market turned until about March of this year. Over the past rew months, the median price has spiked significantly (by almost $100,000).

Sterling Inventory

Inventory of single family and town homes in Sterling has dropped by 60 percent since 2007 and 56 percent since this time last year. The condo inventory in Sterling has dropped by 45 percent since this time last year. This is most significant decrease of inventory out of any large town in Loudoun County.

Sterling Housing Market Overview

The huge drop in inventory throughout Sterling along with a huge increase in buyer demand has lead to a huge shift in the housing market in Sterling. Sterling has some of the lowest price points in Loudoun and lots of foreclosure and short-sale activity making it extremely attractive to first-time home buyers and investors. We’re even seeing areas of Sterling with slight to substantial recent price appreciation.

Homes that are priced well are getting a lot of traffic and a purchase offer within 1 to 2 weeks on the market. Homes priced slightly below (or way below as is the case with many bank-owned and short-sale properties) are getting multiple offers (5, 10, 15+ offers) and are bidding up over asking price within days, if not hours of hitting the market.

We’re seeing slight signs of the inventory leveling out. Unless it levels out, we’ll most likely see median prices continue their upward trend and lots of multiple offers on properties well into the summer.

Loudoun County Home Sales Off Significantly; Ashburn, Leesburg Hit Hardest

Through the first 12 days of the month of December, the number of homes that have gone under contract in Ashburn and Leesburg has dropped tremendously compared to the same period last year. 

In Ashburn there have been only 16 properties in the 20147 and 20148 zip codes that have secured a contract in December.  That equates to only 1.3 sales per day and projects to only 41 sales for the entire month. 

The numbers for Leesburg are not much better.  There have been only  17 sales in the 20175 and 20176 zip codes in the month of December, or 1.4 per day and a forecast of only 44 for the month.  But considering there are 240 more homes for sale in Leesburg versus Ashburn (713-473), it could be argued that the Leesburg market is softer than Ashburn.

The sales activity in Sterling has fared much better and is on track to equal the monthly total of December 2006.  As of the 12th there were 39 sales in the 20164, 20165 and 20166 zip codes which was exactly the same as the first 12 days of last December. 

For all of Loudoun County there have been only 99 homes go under contract so far this month as compared to 147 during the same time period last year.  This equates to a drop of 33% in homes sold and is significantly worse than the second half drop in homes sold (19%). 

“Local Explorer” Good Source Of Info About Loudoun County Area, Schools, Home Sales, Crime

If you’re moving to or new to Loudoun County and don’t know where many things are or want information about the area in general, check out The Washington Post’s Local Explorer. Type in a specific address such as "43330 Junction Plaza Ashburn, VA" or just "Ashburn, VA" and you can find information on places in the area, schools, recent home sales and crime, all on a map. Local Explorer also has facts and figures, local news, classifieds and upcoming events that will help take you further inside area communities. It’s a good tool for anyone moving or new to Loudoun County as well as those already in the area looking for information.

Related Articles:

Links To Loudoun County Communities And Home Owner’s Associations

Resources (Other Than Real Estate) For Loudoun County, Virginia

Moving To Loudoun County, Virginia? How Far Will Your Salary Go?

Sorry, I Can’t Tell You That

The Median Home in Loudoun County

The median list price of a home that went under contract in July of 2007 was $435,000.  Here are the pictures of those six homes and some statistics of those homes. 

4 Bedroom/2.5 Bath/1 Car Garage on .12 acres in South Riding

Approximately 2100 square feet on upper two levels, unfinished basement, built in 2002

4 Bedroom /3.5 Bath/2 Car Garage end unit in Ashburn

Approximately 2700 square feet on 3 finished levels, built in 2003

3 Bedroom/2 Full, 2 Half Baths/2 Car End Unit in Sterling

Approximately 2550 square feet on 3 finished levels, built in 1997

3 Bedroom/2 Full, 2 Half Baths/2 Car Interior Unit in Leesburg

Approximately 2900 square feet on 3 finished levels, built in 2004

3 Bedroom/3.5 Bath/2 Car Interior Unit in Sterling

Approximately 2550 square feet on 3 levels, built in 1997

3 Bedroom/2.5 Bath/2 Car Garage End Unit in South Riding

Approximately 2100 square feet on 3 levels, built in 2000

Photos courtesy of MRIS

Links To Loudoun County Communities and Home Owner’s Associations

Perhaps you’re new to Loudoun County, Virginia and would like to know more about the various communities and Home Owner Associations in the county. Or maybe you’re moving within the county and aren’t too familiar with your future community or HOA. Whatever the reason may be, here are links to resources on all the HOAs and communities in Loudoun County that have sites:

• Ashburn
• Ashburn Farm
• Ashburn Manor
• Ashburn Village
• Belmont Country Club
• Belmont Greene
• Brambleton
• Broad Run Farms
• Broadlands
• Cabin Branch Forest
• Cardinal Glen
• Cascades
• Countryside
• Courts and Ridges at Ashburn
• Edwards Landing
• Exeter
• Falls Ridge
• Farmwell Hunt (site under construction-coming soon)
• Kincaid Forest
• Lansdowne on the Potomac
• Lucketts
• Potomac Crossing
• Potomac Station
• Richland Forest
• River Creek
• Rivercrest
• Spring Lakes
• South Riding
• Tavistock Farms
• Waterford

If you would like information on areas not listed above, just let us know and we’ll provide that to you.

Resources (other than real estate) For Loudoun County, Virginia

For those of you living in Loudoun County and selling or buying within, you probably already know what Loudoun County has to offer. But if you’re relocating to the area, you may not. And being that the numbers, stats and data this blog routinely covers are not the only deciding factor when it comes to moving to Loudoun County, here is a list of additional resources to help you with your decision or give you new ideas on things to do or places to check out on the weekends.

• Official visitor web site for Loudoun County, Virginia – covers everything from shopping and dining to wine festivals and fairs, even a wedding guide. The guides are available in hard copy or pdf files.
• Loudoun County, Virginia – Wikipedia – includes a history and background of Loudoun County and is loaded with links to other resources.
• Loudoun County Public Schools – Kindergarten through 12th. Includes school boundaries, stats, etc.
• Dulles South Online – online portal for news, information and listings for Loudoun County Dulles Region (Dulles South) businesses, organizations and residents, focusing mainly on economic, public policy and community development topics and issues.
• Loudoun County Government Site – Covers everything from transportation and taxes to utilites and art/cultural events.
• Loudoun County Communities/Home Owners Associations – links to all the communities/HOAs in Loudoun (on the Loudoun County government site).
• W&OD Trail – a trail going from Arlington, VA to Purcellville, VA used for biking, walking, roller blading, etc. The setting for numerous charity events during the spring, summer and fall.
• Loudoun County Public Library – available to all residents of Loudoun County. Used by local businesses and residents for various seminars throughout the year.
• For a map of Loudoun County and surrounding areas, check out MSN Live’s mapping feature. Just input a particular city within Loudoun County (i.e. Ashburn, Virginia) at the top of the page and zoom in or out from there. Definitely check out the Bird’s Eye View feature (located immediately to the right of the zoom feature on the left side of the map) to get a clear view down to even the car in driveway of a house.

Hope that this is of use to those of you contemplating moving to the area or those who are already here, but haven’t had the time to really check out what’s going on in the county. And if there is something that you are looking for, but can’t find through the sources listed above, please let us know and we’ll find it for you.

Loudoun County Foreclosure/Bank Owned Property Update

As of this morning, the percentage of properties for sale that are in foreclosure/bank owned in Loudoun County, specifically Ashburn, Sterling and Leesburg is:

• Ashburn – 5 percent
• Sterling – 11 percent
• Leesburg – 11 percent

This is an increase over last month and the highest in several years.

One reason why the perecentage is increasing is because we’re looking at the active properties. More new foreclosures are coming on the market than are selling.

These bank owned foreclosures are not selling nearly as quickly as the other properties because they are not yet priced at a point that makes them very appealing to investors or home buyers. Once you factor in what it would cost to bring them up to the standards of comparable properties, you’re just below or at the same total cost. The difference is that you can just buy a move-in condition property and save yourself the time and hassle of getting contractors out to fix it.

Now, as far as a rental investment, there are some that are appealing. With the amount of rent you can bring in based on the current rental market along with the price point and the monthly payment based on a 20 percent down investor loan, you would break even if not have positive cash flow. But once again, we go back to having to spend the time and energy to fix it up along with at least one if not two months worth of carrying costs (PITI and HOA dues). It seems that most investors that are in it for the long haul (rentals) are not willing to spend this kind of time and energy.

The reason why these foreclosures are still not priced aggressively enough is that the banks have not been beat up enough to drop the price to where the market will absorb them. Once they carry these properties for an extended period of time and the number of foreclosure they have goes up even more, they may start to realize that they need to adjust the prices in order to get the properties off their books.

Time will soon start taking its toll on banks though. We’ll start seeing foreclosures/bank owned properties coming down in price and banks will start accepting offers that they’re currently rejecting because they’re "too low".

Foreclosures, Pre-Foreclosures, Bank-Owned and Short Sales in Eastern Loudoun County

Two topics dominating real estate headlines over the last couple of weeks have been Foreclosure Rates and Subprime Lending.  This post deals with foreclosures and the other various stages of financial distress regarding home ownership such as pre-foreclosure, short sales and bank-owned and how it’s affecting Eastern Loudoun County. 

First a definition of the four common terms used by real estate professionals when talking about financial distress:

• The main one is Foreclosure.  In layman’s terms, this means that the owners of a property fell behind on payments and the bank or mortgage company has decided to sell the house to pay off the loan.  There are plenty of other more comprehensive definitions, but you get the point. 
• Pre-foreclosure is a term used to describe a situation where the owners have fallen behind and the bank or mortgage company has started the process of foreclosure but has not yet auctioned it off.  The owners are trying to sell the property before the bank actually forecloses.
• In some cases the owner tries to sell the house before foreclosure but the house is no longer worth as much as the loans on the property.  In this instance, the owner is trying to do a Short-sale.  Sometimes banks will authorize this if the costs for foreclosing are more than the loss that will be incurred in the Short-sale.  It’s sometimes the lesser of two evils.
• Bank-owned property are also known as Real Estate Owned (REOs).  These are properties that have gone through the foreclosure process and an auction, but neither brought anybody willing to pay more than what the bank was willing to pay to protect its original loan.  Therefore the bank bought the house and is now trying to sell it.

Now the question is how many of these distressed properties are on the market here in Eastern Loudoun County and what effect does that have on real estate market values. 

In Ashburn, there are about 22 homes that are in one of the various stages of distress.  This represents about 5% of the total listings.  A closer look at the properties shows very few of the homes appear to be priced significantly below market value.  And when considering that most of these properties have an AS-IS clause that precludes the seller from making any repairs, the prices are very much in line with current market valuations. 

In most cases the list prices of the distressed properties are actually higher than other properties and because of this they are lingering on the market for hundreds of days.  This can be attributed to a number of factors.  Agent knowledge, market conditions, property conditions,  seller indifference, etc. 

A closer look at the properties shows a number of interesting facts.  The list prices of the distressed properties in Ashburn range from $309,000, up to $1,195,000 with no price range being inundated with distressed properties.  There are also no more than 5 distressed homes in one community so the properties are not concentrated geographically within Ashburn.

The level of distressed properties in both Sterling and Leesburg is approximately 60.  This represents almost 10% of the available listings in both areas.  Also, 60% of the Leesburg distressed listings and over 70% of the Sterling distressed listings are priced below $400,000.  This indicates that many of the first time buyers who tried to stretch in order to get into a house during the boom have found the payments are now beyond their means. 

Fortunately, first time buyers make up about 40% of the buying activity so these properties will more than likely be snatched up by the next wave of first time buyers.  Or investors who have been on the sidelines for much of the last 2 years will step in and establish support.

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