Starting and stopping and starting again.

Home buyers hoping to buy a house in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County over the next month or two might become confused, or frustrated (or both) with the start and stop nature of the market during the summer months.

There might be 300 homes listed for sale over the next two months... but there won't be five new listings per day for the next 60 days.

Why, you might ask?  Mostly because of seller's vacation plans. 

"I'm going to get the house ready to go on the market on ___.  Oh, wait, we're going on vacation just before that, so let's push it back a few weeks."

"I'm going to be ready to have the house photographed by ___.  Oh, wait, then we leave on vacation immediately after that and I don't want to be out of town when the house is being shown."

If you are a home buyer hoping to buy soon... don't get overly discouraged when there is a slow week or so of new listings... that will almost always be followed by a burst of new listings in the following few weeks.