Single family home sales are often one of the best indications of the health of a local real estate market, as compared to analyzing ALL home sales, because almost all of them are being purchased by owner occupants. 

When viewing trends for ALL residential properties, we are including townhouses and condos -- some of which are being purchased by investors -- which means that trends in overall residential sales can be unduly affected by how many investors are buying investment properties.

All that said, if the pace of ALL residential sales is increasing, largely due to investor involvement, it can still mean that a market is healthy -- but we must remember that those investor purchasers may not be present in future years, which could lower the pace of overall residential sales.

So, with that as the context, it is interesting (exciting?) to notice that the pace of single family home sales were stagnant over the past three years (2013, 2014, 2015), but has now started to increase in 2016.  And in fact, the 901 sales shown above only includes the first 11 months of the year.

Bottom line -- more owner occupants seem to be purchasing on an annual basis, which is the sign of a healthy and growing local real estate market!

You can find out more about the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market by visiting....