We had a significant drop in inventory going into this weekend in Oak Hill/Herndon. The total number of single family active listings for this weekend is 93. If the inventory continues to drop, buyers will have a harder time finding great homes. Prices on homes in great condition will be stronger. The inventory is now sitting at December 06/early Spring numbers. 9 new homes came on the market this weekend and 4 homes got contracts. This was also lower this week. The four homes were on the market  19 to 175 days - majority selling under 60 days.  I just sold my last active listing - on the market 18 days. If you are looking to sell or buy - let me know. I am ready to market your home or help you purchase a new home. Welcome to August. 30 more days and the kids will be back in school. This is the big beach month.

We are either experiencing the end of summer real estate blues or the finaning issues. The last weeks of August are the biggest beach vacation weeks. This week, we had a slight increase in net listings in Herndon/Oak Hill to 96 single family homes. There were 7 new listings that came to the market but only 2 homes sold for the week. Obviously if only 2 homes sold and we have 96 homes on the market - the months on market for the average home will be 12 months - with 8 homes selling per month.  Only time and hindsight will tell us. The market picks up in Fall - usually mid September.  Enjoy your Labor Day weekend! 

We have had another interesting week in real estate. It sure would be nice to predict what the real estate market will do from month to month. So far, there have been incidences of contracts falling apart because the buyer can no longer get the financing that they had been promised. Eventhough this has affected individual sellers and buyers, it has not flooded the market with additional listings. The local market in Herndon/Oak Hill seems to be doing well. Prices still seem to be stable. There are a total of 93 active single family homes on the market - the same as last week. This shows that the foreclosure market is not affecting the number of new listings coming on the market. There were 7 new listings this week and 8 homes received contracts. All about the same as last week and now a week after the turmoil of the banks withdrawing their financing. Yesterday, the Fed rate dropped - this should also help stabilize the market. I would think if we have another week of these results - we should be in pretty great shape. After all, the market has done really great for a summer market. June, July and August are the worst 3 months of the year for real estate due to summer vacaations and kids being home from school. September usually sees an increase in the number of homes sold. Hopefully, this trend will continue. We should have a great Fall and next Spring market. If you are thinking of selling in the Spring market 2008, this is a great time to call to get ideas of what you need to do to get on the market. If you are a buyer ready to buy, make sure you are working with stable lenders - I have several I could recommend. Have a great weekend.

The market was pretty much the same as last week in Herndon/Oak Hill. We had a total of 92 net single family homes on the market going into this weekend. There were 7 new listings with 7 listings getting contracts - another great week. I have noticed one trend in the last 60 to 90 days and now we have another issue this past week that will, to some degree, affect our real estate market. A pricing disparity has appeared between the over $500,000 market and the under $500,000. I know that this is a result of the sub-prime market imploding. Most of the homes under $500,000 are foreclosures or are pre-foreclosures. They have been dropping in price over the last several months but the non-foreclosure homes are not and they are getting fairly stable prices for their homes. There are some foreclosures on the market 30,000 to 40,000 less that identical houses that sold a month ago - but, even at these prices, they are not selling. It looks a little odd. This week, I heard that the lenders are not providing stated income loans anymore - which makes sense to me. At the same time, though, the jumbo loan rates jumps a percent because, according to the news, they want a higher interest rate because of the issues with the sub-prime market. This all seems like a knee-jerk reaction - but only time will tell. You would think this would affect our inventory and prices would soften. I would think, my lowly opinion, that the inventory would have to get to the 120 to 130 range before we would see the impact locally. I think the next couple of weeks will show an inventory increase if we are going to weaken again - so far so good. The real estate market is very hard to predict. I guess when someone is able to fairly predict the stock market, we will be able to predict the real estate market. I yearn for the stable market of 1992 to 1999. I did not know then that I had it so good. Have a great day.+