10 — Say you saw it in The Real Estate Browser of Lynchburg — Volume 8 Number 7 www . LynchburgRealEstateBrowser . com
A Few Interesting Stats from the First Quarter of 2017 by Dan Vollmer , Associate Broker , ReMax 1st Olympic
If you ’ ve lived in Lynchburg for any length of time , chances are you have at least one friend who has a real estate license ( and perhaps 10 ). And if you happen to run into that friend at the grocery story or at church or around town , most likely you ’ ve asked them “ so … how ’ s the market ?” And I ’ m willing to bet their response was something along the lines of “ the market is great - things are moving fast out there !”
How do I know this ? Well , for starters I probably have more REALTOR friends than most folks … and that ’ s what all of them say to ME ! And secondly , its not far from what I say when my friends as me the same question . And last - but not least - its actually true .
There are any number of ways we could look at current market data to underscore this point , but today let ’ s look at just a few :
First Quarter sales volume ( by dollar ). In the first three months of 2017 , our market had a total closed sales volume of $ 105,550,166 . That ’ s all residential sales basically in Region 2000 ( Lynchburg City and the 4 surrounding counties , with a small percentage beyond those borders ). By comparison , in the first quarter of 2016 the total sales volume was $ 92,415,351 . That ’ s a yearover-year increase of $ 13,134,815 or 14 %! And that ’ s accounting for three of the slowest months in the year
First Quarter sales volume ( by units ). Again , for the first 3 months of this year , we saw 605 residential sales close . For the same quarter of 2016 , there were 552 residential sales … which means an additional 53 homes closed this year over last year . That represents a growth of 9.6 % year-over-year .
Days on Market . For the homes that sold in the first quarter of this year , the average number of days on market was 120 days . During the same period last year , the average for homes that sold was 140 days . Which means every home that sold during the first quarter of this year was on the market almost 3 weeks less .
Here ’ s one more interesting twist on that last stat . For just the month of March , in 2016 the average days on market for closed homes was 146 days . This past March ( 2017 ) the average dropped to 115 days . That means the average time on the market dropped by 31 days - or an entire MONTH - from last year to this year .
As I have been telling folks for the past several months , while there are no guarantees in real estate , I feel confident in saying right now is likely the best time to sell a home in the past 8 years . Having said that , there are outside factors that affect various segments of our market . Always best to ask one of those REALTOR friends of yours for a more in depth analysis of how the current market affects your home specifically ..
Questions , comments , or have an idea for a future article ? Email me at dan @ DanVollmer . com .