Click here to download January's Market Update charts.

We begin 2011 as we have the past couple of years... with a relatively slow month of January. Only 57 Residential units sold through the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Association of REALTORS Multiple Listing Service (HRAR MLS) during the month of January, an 11% drop from January, 2010 and a 5.5% increase from January, 2009 –pretty consistent with the recent past.

Also consistent with the past couple of years (and beyond) is the seasonal drop in homes for sale in our market. This is good short term news for those Sellers who have remained on the market, reducing their competition. While this inventory reduction is short term and predictable, it is fairly dramatic -slightly more than 20% in both the City and County.

Average and Median prices continue the appearance of being fairly steady when looking at 12 month trends, a bit of a surprise considering the negative pressure being put on pricing by foreclosure and short sale properties. There has been only a small decline in average sales price in the past year, and virtually no change in the past eight months. Median price has also remained practically unchanged for the past 5 months. Are these time frames long enough to declare a trend? No, but it is an interesting phenomenon, possibly caused by stronger sales in the luxury home market combined with a slowdown in townhome sales, thereby boosting the overall market numbers (average and median sales price) in an environment in which Sellers are competing with distressed properties. We will investigate this further in next month's market report.

The one and three year changes in the average and median prices of sold homes as of January 31, 2011 are:

Three year change:    Average Price down -11.23%, Median Price down -10.42%
One year change:       Average Price down -2.07%, Median Price down -2.46%

Click here to view or download our Market Activity Charts for January, 2011.