Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Fair market
New River Valley home sales improved 10 percent in 2007 while U.S. sales fell.
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Associated Press
Home sales across the country floundered in 2007, falling 20 percent and leaving many homes like this one in Denver for sale . But Western Virginia’s housing market fared better, with the New River Valley experiencing a 10 percent increase in home sales and the Roanoke Valley seeing a 10.7 percent decline, according to area real estate groups.
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The housing market in Western Virginia finished 2007 in fairly good shape for being in a downturn.
It's surely a brighter picture than nationally.
Nationwide, home sales were down about 20 percent last year, though final results are still being tallied. In Virginia, home sales fell 14 percent.
By comparison, New River Valley sales rose 10 percent to 2,145 units, according to data kept by the New River Valley Association of Realtors.
In the Roanoke Valley, sales declined 10.7 percent to 4,964, according to a report this week by the Roanoke Valley Association of Realtors.
While that's a decline, it's not as severe a decline as is occurring for the nation as a whole.
Nationwide, the average sales price has been running down about 3 percent.
In the Roanoke Valley, the average sales price rose 1.9 percent to $213,459, the association said.
In the New River Valley, the average sales price fell a small fraction of 1 percent in 2007 to $190,059.
Elaine Head, who heads the New River Valley real estate group, proclaimed 2007 a good year.
"I've had many agents tell me it was one of the best years," Head said.
Head said the negative national figures best define large metropolitan areas. There are small communities, the New River Valley being one of them, where the story is positive, she said.
Neil Conner, president of the Roanoke Valley Association of Realtors, said the up and down nature of investment markets including real estate means that there will be years when certain figures are depressed.
Following a boom from 2001 through 2005, he speculated that fall 2007 saw the bottom of the latest bust. "I believe we are heading for an upturn," Conner said.
