Apparently, long enough for the ivy to grow through the windows!

But on a more serious note --- or at least more focused on data.....

In the past year, there have been 828 home sales, 97 of which took longer than a year to sell, which is 12% of the home sales.

There are currently 989 homes on the market for sale, 192 of which have already been on the market for more than a year, which is 19% of the active inventory.  If we assume it would take another 60 days for any of these active listings to sell, we find that there are 250 that have been on the market for at least 10 months --- in other words, 25% of the active inventory.

So, it would seem --- no big surprise --- that there are many more homes on the market than there are buyers to buy them.  This, thus, results in many homes languishing on the market. 

Of note, as I mentioned earlier this week, we're not really headed in the right direction.  So far this month (Apr 1 - Apr 28) we have seen 217 new listings come on the market in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, and in that same time only 57 sold.

Conclusions & Directives:

1. If you don't have to sell, don't --- it's not a great time to do so, given all of your competition with so many other listings.
    
   
2. If you have to sell (or really want to), know that it may take longer than you expect.
    
   
3. Don't believe the cartoon in yesterday's Daily News Record.....yet.....