Real estate observation
July 28, 2008
I have been following the market in different parts of the mid atlantic and it appears that the slump in sales has spread everywhere. However, the sales prices still haven't dropped in snow country at the level that they have in, say northern VA. Would you say this is due to fewer anxious sellers, fewer forclosures, or a combination of both? I personally think that some folks paid too much in the heat of the moment and can't afford to walk away or swallow too much of a loss because it would kill their credit.
Yeah K, I think it's a different market for one. It's a second, third, maybe fourth home market. And if you discount folks that are fishin or trying to sell old fixer uppers(which is most houses on the market) for the price of a new house then the prices in CV are still relatively underpriced. Your going to be hardpressed to find any foreclosures in CV.
I also think that comparitively (northern VA vs WV mountains) someone can still get a hell of a deal in the mountains of WV. Given there are some twenty-thirty year old houses that need 50-100 K of work on them to bring them up to par that are priced a little high for market value. But generally if you take some of the newer homes or homes that are in good condition in Canaan Valley and magically transport them to northern Va on the same amount of land your going to pay a lot more for that same house in Northern Va even with the downturn in pricing and foreclusures in that area.
If you look around, there are some newer houses in CV that are great deals in terms of value and investment (I can think of several off hand), not to mention you can get away from the heat and traffic...which is priceless if you ask me.