Housing Market Levels Off
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Housing Market Levels Off

Lois Van DeWiele put her Sterling Park house on the market Oct. 1, and she is worried about how long it will take to sell it. Her four-bedroom, two-story house is one of four on sale on Poplar Road.

ÒThe market has gotten very slow and with the holidays, people donÕt want to go out and look at houses and move their families around,Ó she said Sunday. ÒIt is a great community, and we have a great school.Ó

Kelley Totaro has taken her Ashburn house off the market, deciding to rent it out rather than try to sell it now. She said she was not willing to follow her real estate agentÕs advice to reduce the price by more than $100,000. Totaro, who listed her house a month ago, also cited the difficulty of selling a home during the holidays.

Van DeWiele is asking $480,000 for her property. Totaro was seeking $980,000 for her four-bedroom colonial, which has three more rooms that could be used as bedrooms. Her newer home also has valuable amenities that Totaro added after moving in four years ago.

LOUDOUN COUNTYÕS HOUSING market, which has been at an all-time high in recent years, has changed. Residential home sales have declined in the past five months and sales are lower than the same time period last year, the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors has reported. It also takes longer to sell a house, but experts say the market is still strong and home prices are higher than 2004 rates.

And homes do sell this time of year. Just ask Remax real estate agent Tracy Wenger, who sold two in Sterling last week.

The market data was compiled by the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors, which extracted it from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. (MRIS)

Ray Chappell, regional vice president for Weichert, Realtors, said the market change is positive and necessary, but temporary.

Rick Entsminger, a developer and president of the Loudoun Northern Virginia Building Industry Association, agreed. ÒItÕs just that weÕve come off two to three years of a super hot market, a plus, plus market, which wasnÕt sustainableÓ

Chappell said, ÒWeÕve been driving at a 110 mph pace and weÕre going to see a 70 mph pace.Ó

He also attributed the market change to an increase in home mortgages interest rates. Although they have risen only 0.50 to 0.75 percent, potential buyers are exercising caution, he said.

Wenger, who has been a Sterling real estate agent for 15 years, said there is a lot of fear among homeowners that the prices are dropping. ÒItÕs a correcting market and it is not depreciating homes,Ó she said. ÒThings are still selling. É But youÕll see price reductions É to a realistic price.Ó

A three-bedroom townhouse in Countryside, which sold for $340,000 last week, probably would have sold for $380,000 if the market was still hot, she said. It was on the market for about a month.

WHILE MANY HOMEOWNERS were receiving multiple offers within the first week they put their houses on sale last year, the average time before a property was sold increased to 42 days in October, the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors reported.

Chappell said he is seeing some concessions on the part of homeowners who are willing to lower their price or pay part of a buyerÕs closing costs.

Entsminger, vice president of Elm Street Development in McLean, said the market change is going to help more people to buy houses, townhouses and condominiums.

ÒIt is going to help a lot more people É who were priced out,Ó he said. ÒPrices [of homes] have outstripped incomes, so it gets us back into more of a balance, a more sustainable level.Ó

Chappell predicted sales would resume their accelerated pace in February. He oversees four offices in Loudoun County and 16 other offices in Northern Virginia.

HE SAID the value of homes has actually appreciated by about 18.4 percent per year for the past five years. That coincides with the greater Washington, D.C., areaÕs unprecedented job growth, with 287,000 new jobs in the past five years, he said. ÒThe jobs will drive the market and keep us in good demand.Ó

With the change in the housing market, he predicted that homes would still have a 5 to 10 percent appreciation.

The new market also has generated an increase in the number of houses on the market, he said. There are 50 percent more homes for sale than there was a year ago. That amounts to a three-month supply, he added.

Wenger said 700 to 800 houses were on the market last spring and now there are about 2,800 in Loudoun County. ÒThe buyers have more choices,Ó she said.

Citing information he obtained at a September economic summit at George Mason University, Chappell said the greater Washington, D.C., area added 80,000 jobs this year and 53,000 houses were needed. Area developers, on the other hand, construct 20,000 to 25,000 homes per year.

The high demand for houses is keeping the appreciation of the property rising, he said.

Wenger advised residents who were planning to sell to be realistic and patient.

Loudoun is one of the fastest growing counties in the United States and has led Northern Virginia in population increases during the past four years, census figures show. The number of residents has grown by nearly 41 percent since the 2000 Census, with 1,000 new residents moving in every month, the Department of Economic DevelopmentÕs Quarterly Economic Review said.