The recent seller’s market is making some room for Charlottesville-area homebuyers this autumn.
The third quarter saw a 2% increase in house sales, a slight $5,000 dip in the median sales price to $450,000 and a 34% increase in active listings since this time in 2024, according to the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors’ latest report.
The mix available to the Charlottesville region’s homebuying hopefuls, a 3.7-month supply, also includes a larger selection of townhouses and condominiums, as residential building permits rose 51% for multifamily spaces and 7% for single-family residences in the past year.
In place of the heady seller’s market from 2019 to 2024 is more of a transitional market in which sellers still find buyers — in an average of six days in Greene County, for example — but buyers have more breathing room to think about their purchases and weigh more options before signing.
“People can make good decisions and not feel like their hair is on fire,” Josh White, president of the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors, told The Daily Progress. “You have more choice, and you have more time, instead of feeling that you have to sacrifice your first-born child to buy a house.”
“Sales activity saw a little bit of a rebound in August and September,” helped by the drop in the interest rate, Amanda Spigone, the association’s president-elect who will be installed as CAAR’s new president on Dec. 4, told The Daily Progress. As of Oct. 16, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate was 6.27%, down from 6.44% at this point in 2024.
Bright spots in the report include a 33% jump in house sales in Greene County and a 13% increase in Fluvanna County. Charlottesville saw a 1% increase in property sales over the past year, while sales dipped by 2% in Albemarle County, 4% in Nelson County and 6% in Louisa County.
The drop in the region’s median house sales prices was the first since the first quarter of 2019, according to the CAAR report. Sales prices in Charlottesville fell for the third straight quarter, down 18% over this time last year; Albemarle County saw a 5% drop; and Greene County’s median sales price was down 3%. Nelson County and Louisa County each saw 7% increases; Fluvanna County’s increase was 6%.
Houses sold more slowly in the third quarter; the median days on the market was 18, up seven days from the same time in 2024. In Greene County, the median house was on the market less than a week, at six days; the median house in Nelson County, on the other hand, stayed on the market for 22 days. Twenty days was the median in Charlottesville and Fluvanna County, 19 in Albemarle County and 18 in Louisa County.
Active listings continued to grow, offering buyers more choices. Albemarle County, with 423, and Louisa County, with 298, led the way; Fluvanna County had 128, Charlottesville had 110 and Greene County had 77. Nelson County’s 92 active listings reflected the only decrease since the same time in 2024.
White and Spigone said that key points for sellers in the current conditions are determining the correct price to ask for a house, paying attention to its condition and getting individualized advice.
“Setting expectations for sellers is one of the hardest things” real estate professionals face in this environment, White said. “Some locations slowed way, way down, which is hard for sellers to stomach.”
At the height of the seller’s market, houses in less-than-gleaming condition still got snapped up quickly. The rise in inspections before sales shows that this trend is changing, Spigone said.
“We had five years of home inspections being waived entirely,” said Spigone. “Condition [of properties] is becoming more of an issue.”
In a transitioning market, “you really have to look at the data,” White said. “That’s why it’s so important to sit down with a real estate professional and look at your situation.”
The third-quarter report reflects a 3.4% unemployment rate and a Virginia job market that added 7,200 jobs in August.
It’s too soon to predict what trends the fourth quarter will hold, but Spigone and White said that the final quarter of the year tends to be slower because people are focusing on the holiday season and are reluctant to move in winter weather.
The final quarter of 2025 also is likely to reflect the effects of the ongoing government shutdown on employment data and other economic factors.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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