The market did great this week. I would guess it was as a result of the stimulus package. We have 53 single family homes for sale in 20171 - Herndon/Oak Hill - up 3 from last week. You can definitely see the beginnings of Spring market both in the increase in "for sale" signs but also - which is great news - you can see some "contract pending" signs. Click here to see the 53 for sale homes - http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=29301145417. There were 9 new homes on the market - one was a reissue - so 8 new homes. None of the new homes were short sales or foreclosures - which is another good sign.  When short sales or foreclosures homes come on the market - it depresses home prices and it makes it hard to stabilize the market price. The 9 homes can be seen by clicking http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=29301097208. The best news yet is that 7 homes sold this week - 2 of them were short sales but 5 of them were seller sold homes. Our market had been selling 1 seller sold home a week so this is a huge improvement. Click here to see the new homes http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=29301136533 It would be great to see these kind of numbers next week. Also, if you are looking for a new home, I will be at my Open House Sunday 3/1 1-4PM at 12859 Tewksbury - a well maintained home - just waiting for new owners.  Just stop by and see.

The market was much better this week than it has been for the last 5 to 6 weeks but it still slow for the seller sold homes. We have a total of 50 single family homes for sale in 20171 Oak Hill/Herndon. Lower than it has been in the past. The inventory is very low. To give you perspective, when the market was very hot in 2005, we had between 25 and 30 active listings on the market at any one time. To see them, click http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=29195449048. We had 5 new listings that came on the market. To see them, click http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=29195233145. They are all seller sale homes. One of the the reasons that we are not seeing too many foreclosures out there is because the homes are coming on as short sales and they are being contracted on them as short sales. The banks are working to get the short sales to work since they then avoid the expense of a foreclosure. There were 5 homes sold this week - much better than last week. One of them was a short sale and one of them is a foreclosure. The short sale has been on the market for 87 days and came on at $849,900 and dropped to $714,999 before it got a contract. The other was a foreclosure and came on 137 days ago at $675,000 and dropped to $615,000 before it got a contract on it. The other 3 homes were seller sold homes - which is 3 times more than last week and the week before. Two of them had substantial price drops after 30 days and the other came on the market I would say below market. To see them, click on http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=29195215832 Now that the stimulus package has passed; hopefully, we will see the first time buyers buy the lower priced homes or first time buyers home - which allows the medium to higher price homes sell to the move up buyers - which would be a great help.

So far this year, it has been disappointing for both the sellers and buyers in trying to stabilize this market. January started strong and looked like it would be a good Spring market for Northern Virginia. When things slowed a few weeks past, I first thought possibly it was the snow/cold weather, but it may have been the stimulus package. I am not sure if it is the fact that the stimulus package has not passed or if we think or not think the stimulus package will not do the job. I would love to know what other people opinions are? There were 54 single family homes on the market in 20171 - Oak Hill/Herndon. 5 new homes came on the market. To see them, use this link http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=29055775601 None of which were foreclosures - they were all seller homes. There was 1 relist so that actually there were 4 new listings. The bad news is that only 2 homes sold this week. one was on the market for 188 days and started at 475,000 which I thought was too high at the time - should have been more around $435,000 and no higher than $450,000. The house was on the market at $400,000 when it got a contract. The other was a short sale - which is hardly considered a sale since they are listed low to attract an offer and then the bank has to approve them.  To see the homes that got contracts, use this link. http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=29055761949 So since January 1st, 2009, 9 homes received contracts and 4 of those were short sales. To see these, check out this link http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=29056011902 When you look at the numbers, 1.2 homes are selling per week that is owned by a seller and is not a distressed sale. This is out of the available 54 homes. All we can hope for is that the stimulus package gives the confidence back to the consumer and gets our market going.  One positive is that I have seen a little bit of increase in phone calls and web site hits so there are still buyers out there - even if they are sitting on the fence.

Well, this week continues to do what it did for the past 2 weeks - pretty much nothing. We still have 53 active listings, single family homes, in Oak Hill/Herndon - so not much increase in inventory - again, good news for the sellers. There were 7 new listings - 3 were relisted homes. Check out
this link to see them http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=28906417037 Of those 7, 3 of them were new foreclosures to the market - not a good sign for our market because the sellers have to compete with them. The not so good news is that there were only 2 homes that sold this week. One was a 1.1 million dollar home in terrific shape and sold in 19 days. The other - I am not sure what it was. It was a foreclosure listed at $168,000 - which I did not know we had anything in that price range. The picture shows a home on Centreville Rd on .79 acre. It sounds like it was a great deal for a lot. You can see the 2 sales with this link http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=28906439724

The market slowed this week - probably due to weather and all the school holidays and closures. We have 53 listings in Oak HIll/Herndon. There were 7 new homes that came on the market with 2 that were reissued so a net of 5 actual new listings. We had 3 contracts this week which was lower than last week. One of the homes that got a contract was a short sale that I have listed. It received 3 contracts but it will take 60 days for the bank to decide that they will take the price - so it is never sold until the bank agrees. If the storm does not come in that they are predicting, maybe the market will regain the momentum that it had in the last 2 weeks. Interest rates are at historically low rates.