How to buy a foreclosure in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County
With some regularity, I am asked by potential purchasers how they would go about buying a foreclosure. First, here is a list of upcoming foreclosure sales, but more…
Mortgage Interest Rates On The Rise, Still, Further, Higher
Well, it seems the mortgage interest rates might really, finally, be on the rise -- for good. Over the past several years there were several times when I thought they…
My Predictions for the 2017 Real Estate Market
As is my annual tradition, I am making some predictions about what we'll see in the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market in 2017. Overall, I am…
Looking Back At My 2016 Housing Market Predictions
So, last year, I made some predictions about what we'd see in 2016.... As shown above -- I was WAAAY too conservative in predicting how many home sales we would see in…
Home Sales Increase (at least) 16% in 2016
All home sales have not yet been reported but it is now clear that there were upwards of 1300 home sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County last year. We are likely to…
Only Select Few Building Lot Remain at Heritage Estates
Dawn at Heritage Estates, December 2016 Only a select few building lots remain at Heritage Estates, an active adult (55+) community located on the West side of…
Is the current surge in home sales a (dangerous) repeat of the past?
We saw a surge in home sales back in 2003-2005 (and beyond) with a 26% increase in the pace of sales in a two year period. Let's see how that compares to more recent…
Are home sales increasing (too?) quickly, or just catching up?
Some folks would look at home sales over the past seven years (shown above) and comment that home sales are increasing at a very fast pace -- showing a 52% increase since…
How do higher mortgage interest rates affect monthly payments?
Just after the election, mortgage interest rates started rising. They started around 3.5%, and have since climbed to somewhere between 4.25% and 4.3%. It seems unlikely…
More than half of buyers in our area spend less than $200K on a home
I thought we might actually see more change in these figures over time than we do see when looking at the data. The graph above shows the percentage of buyers (for this…
Have all price ranges seen equivalent changes in inventory levels?
Indeed -- inventory levels are falling -- there aren't nearly as many homes on the market now as there were a year ago. In fact, over the past year, we have seen a 27%…
New home sales are increasing, but is it happening fast enough?
After six years of rather stagnant new home sales (41-54 per year) between 2010 and 2015, we are finally starting to see more new home sales in 2016. The graph above…