Central Virginia Housing Market Stable, Realtors Believe

The Central Virginia housing market looked a little skewed at times in 2006, but the Lynchburg News & Advance reports it remained stable.

Local real estate agent groups in Central Virginia sold 2,952 homes in 2006, according to December data from the Virginia Association of Realtors.

Closed home sales in 2006 were about a percent lower than they were in 2005, said Wayne Ramsey, 2007 president of the Lynchburg Association of Realtors.

“We are incredibly fortunate here. Our market held an outstanding pace in 2003, 2004 and 2005. There is no segment of the market that held a huge change,” he said.

Ramsey said people in the area are still buying historic homes, new homes and homes they’ve never set a foot in.

“We used to have a seasonal market. We don’t anymore,” he said.

Houses sold in December spent an average of 98 days on market.

Ramsey said for three months in 2006, Lynchburg appeared to have the highest average of days on the market in the state. This was due to condominiums being on the market anywhere from 400-500 days at a time, despite Virginia mortgage costs being relatively effective.

Ramsey said one of those condominiums was incomplete when it was finally sold, which is why it took such a long time to sell.

Lynchburg’s median closing price in December was $157,900, about 13 percent higher compared than last year’s median price of $140,000. The national median price for single-family housing was $221,600 in December.

The cost of mortgage loans is rising in the state as a whole. According to the VAR, Virginia’s average price in December was $274,868, a 4 percent increase from last year’s $269,863.

Many sections of the Virginia housing market grew strongly. Eastern Shore, Martinsville/Henry County, Chesapeake Bay & Rivers, New River Valley, South Central and Southwest Virginia, Greater Augusta and Williamsburg all showed increases in closed transactions for the year compared to last year.

SOURCE: Lynchburg News & Advance