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This month: Meaningful community, a typical situation, inventory and expectations, and my first closing.
January is the month I started writing RealCentralVA in 2005, then I started writing these notes in January 2014. There have been incalculable changes in life and the real estate space since then, and two things are constant: 1) I’m writing this note as if I’m writing it to someone who is interested in the real estate market, and who is not a real estate agent/lender/etc. 2) No matter the changes in real estate, I remain committed to learning, listening, and representing my clients.
What questions do you have? 434-242-7140
Meaningful Community
Live and participate in a community long enough and you will see the same things again and again. There used to be an incredible music festival (Festy) in the Charlottesville area, and I took my younger one for several years. She loved the Pie Guy. We took and cooked food at the campsite, but she subsided on Pie Guy. Those interactions were meaningful as she grew up.
Every year, the Pie Guy would see us and recognize her. We have seen him all over the area for years: festivals, farmers markets, and recently at a Nest event.
The pies? Sweet or savory, they are delicious.
The point of the story? Consistency matters. Paying attention to your people matters. Taking the opportunity to recognize those around us matters.
No such thing as “typical.”
I was negotiating with a sellers’ agent on a home inspection, and the counter offers didn’t make much sense so I asked for insight into the logic of the counters. They said, “this seems to be the best they can do, as I told them it would be good to get to 1% of the purchase price in terms of what they would offer in lieu of repairs.” (bolding mine)
I almost wished I hadn’t asked.
There are few things that are typical in this business. Rare examples of “typical” in real estate:
Inspection repairs? Not typical. At all. There is a reason that my answer to most things starts with “it depends” — experience.
The most important thing about the 2025 real estate market: Inventory.
The hardest part about rising inventory?
Managing and helping to set clients’ expectations:
- Sellers: What you thought your house was worth might not match the current real estate market. Rates around 7% make for fewer and less flexible buyers. More inventory/competition may mean a lower asking price than you might have been expecting. The data matters. I always have my gut/professional instinct about the data, but my role is to help you interpret the data, and provide the right context to the data. In other words, I help you answer the questions 1) How much should I ask for my house? and 2) What does the data mean to you?
- Buyers: I help you understand your particular market band: e.g. $650-800K, at least 4BR and 2 BA, at least 1,400 finished square feet above grade, less than 2 acres, in these two elementary school districts. We will also talk about when relevant homes might come on the market, how many, what does the right fit mean to you, and how much you should offer. The 2025 market is likely to be competitive, but hopefully not so competitive that you don’t have time to think and consider your offer, and the upfront education and legwork that we do means that you are best prepared to make an efficient decision to offer or not, or to wait and watch.
Real estate is local.
ResiClub surveyed 26 firms for their national home price forecasts, and the projections educated guesses ranged from up 10.8% to down 2%. I suspect the Charlottesville area real estate market will be in the “up 3% to 5%” range, and different micro markets within will vary greatly.
UP: 23 of the 26 firms expect national home prices to rise in 2025
DOWN: 3 of the 26 firms expects national home prices to fall in 2025
Among the 26 forecasts tracked by ResiClub, the average prediction is a +2.7% increase in U.S. home prices in 2025.
I say this all the time: National trends are good for tracking consumer sentiments that affect the Charlottesville market, and local trends (employment, cost of living, inventory) directly affect the Charlottesville market.
Macro matters; micro matters more.
If you missed my predictions segment last month, here it is.
Quick level-set:
New resale listings in Charlottesville + Albemarle from 1/1/-1/7 (total for that month)
- 2025 – 20 (I’ll guess 137)
- 2024 – 26 (110)
- 2023 – 27 (103)
- 2022 – 9 (109)
- 2021 – 24 (149)
- 2020 – 25 (163)
Learning to get out of the way
I vividly remember my first closing. We were sitting at the table, buyers on this side, attorney on that side, and me in the middle. The attorney would pass the page to me, then me to the client who would sign it.
Looking back, I think he was humoring me, knowing that it was my first closing, and recognizing that I wanted to both see and learn and maybe make it look like I knew what I was looking at.
I don’t do that anymore, because I know to sit back and get out of the way. Knowing when to be quiet and get out of the way is a learned skill.
I still pay attention. For instance, I learned recently that one local lender has a clause in their closing doc that if they made a mistake in the loan docs, and the buyer does not respond within 7 days to fix said error (misspelling or some similar error), then that loan is considered to be in default.
I had no idea; now I do, and so do you.
5 Potential Big Things in 2025:
- Homeowners insurance becomes more of a volatile factor in the Charlottesville market. (more on this next month)
- Uncertainty at the national level will be a distraction.
- More new construction coming to market. Did you know that ~1800 units are coming soon to Greene County? The City of Charlottesville has a number of projects coming. And I think (hope) we’ll see more conversions of single-family homes to multi-family.
- Climate migration continues to accelerate. Weldon Cooper Center projects about 40,000 more people in Albemarle County in 2050, 7,000 more in Greene County, and 3,000 more in Charlottesville City. Is that population increase directly tied to climate migration? No, but I’d wager a reasonable percentage is.
- More realtors will retire. This is a hard market, and anyone who tells you that representing clients or that the real estate transaction process is easy is either lying to you, selling to you, or does not know that they are wrong.
I wrote this during a closing last year:
Closing.
Lives starting
Starting over
Chapters starting
or ending
Up
or
Down
Sizing.
Seeking agency, stability, comfort.
What I’m Reading
What I’m Listening To
Thanks for reading this far.
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