The market continues to limp along. I personally did not see any increase in activity with the lowering of interest rates. I do think that it will help since I do see quite a few people come through with real estate agents during the week. This week was a little better than last week but still pretty slow. There are a total of 72 homes on the market - a slight increase from last week. There were 6 new homes listed this week - none of which had been relisted. Two of the new homes were foreclosures and one is a short sale. One of the new foreclosure listings sold March of 2004 for $412,000 and is now on the market for $395,000. Definitely an upside down listing, but not the usual $100,000 to $150,000 difference in original sale price versus today's price. We had 2 homes sold in the last 7 days. One is a short sale that came on the market with a contract on it and the other is a normal seller sold home. It was on the market 130 days before it got a contract. Original price was priced at $635,000 and was priced at $585,000 when it got a contract. Tax assessed value is $618,000 so below Fairfax County's evaluation. With the amount of traffic going through the listings, we should see better results in the next 2 weeks.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! The market did well - much better than the last 12 weeks - I think the boost was from interest rates at 5% for 30 year fixed. There were 66 single family homes in 20171 this week. Surprisingly, there were 2 new listings and they were not foreclosures - seems like a strange time to come on the market - the day after Christmas. There were 3 seller sold homes this week - 2 were on the market less than 45 days and one was on the market for 160 days. Now lets hope this is the beginning of a great New Year 2009 in real estate. Happy New Year! This is the time to start putting your home in tip top shape if you are planning to come on the market this Spring. The best time to put your home on the market is late February/March 1st . Much less inventory and there are buyers in the market who are out there early looking for a new home. If you have questions as to what you need to do to get prepared for putting your home on the market, just email me at AMitchellRE@gmail.com or call 703 264-7877

It is the holidays and not much else is going on. There were 67 single family homes on the market in 20171 - a little less than the week before. No new listings came up and 2 homes sold. I sold the one seller sold listing and the other was a foreclosure. It is is really hard to predict what this market will do with so little going on. I think we need to wait till 2009 to see an increase in business. Have a wonderful Christmas and Happy Holidays!