Braemar Property Value Report: January-February 2023 (Arista Series)
There is no doubt that spring is here. Flowers are blooming, trees are budding and as far as the real estate market is concerned, buyers are out in full force. Let’s dive into this Braemar Property Value Report, focused on Arista homes in our neighborhood, and see how 2023 got started. For the sake of clarification, Arista homes were the largest homes built by Brookfield Homes in our neighborhood and include the Allister, Buckingham and Canterbury floor plans. The Canterbury is the most common in Braemar.
There was one Canterbury sold during the last two months. Details of that sale are listed below.
This sale tells the tale of what was happening in late summer to the end of last year. This home was originally listed in August 2022. After two price decreases from $860,000, it landed at $825,000. That listing was pulled in November and relisted with a different MLS number in late November. It went under contract twice in December, the last of which went to closing last month. Sellers at that time were having a hard time digesting the buyer behavior change and the fact that the steep increase in mortgage interest rates made listing higher than the last sale in the neighborhood not a great idea.
Taking this one sale and combining it with the entire past twelve months of Arista home sales, the six and twelve month data points tracked in this report are updated as seen below.
Starting with the sold price column, it is good news that both six month sold prices above their corresponding twelve month sold prices. This indicates, despite the latter half of 2022 being a more stable seller’s market, that Arista home prices have been steadily increasing. It isn’t by leaps and bounds as we saw in 2020 and 2021, but any upward growth is positive.
Seller subsidy (closing cost help to buyers from sellers) has actually come down in the six month average compared to the twelve month average. That, I must say, was unexpected. It seems buyers have settled into the six to seven percent mortgage interest rates as being the new normal. What is more important is that with both median values being zero, more than half of Arista home sellers in Braemar gave no closing cost help in the last six months and the last twelve months.
Days on market is really the only place we see a significant change not in favor of sellers. The six month average marketing time is more than double the twelve month average marketing time. When talking averages, a high days on market sale like the one detailed in this report will skew data. Looking at median values, the six month median is still longer than the twelve month median. Buyers in the last six months have been acting much more deliberately.
Based on the findings in this report, if you placed your Braemar Arista home on the market, priced to current conditions, you could expect it be under contract in about two weeks. The pace is picking up though. Buyer activity is starting to rival what we saw in 2021 and once again, our market doesn’t have enough inventory to meet demand. Still, it would not be startling to see offers with seller subsidy requests. Sellers can decrease the odds of those requests and increase the odds of top dollar by pricing right, doing the proper preparation and hiring an agent that professionally markets their home. Those are the things that increase buyer enthusiasm.
The next Braemar Property Value Report will be out in May. In the meantime, if you want to know what your house would be worth in the current market, or what projects you might need to take on prior to listing for best results, get in touch for your no obligation consultation. Since 2005, No One Knows Braemar Better!
Chris Ann Cleland
Associate Broker, Licensed in VA
Long & Foster Real Estate
703-402-0037, ChrisAnn@LNF.com
www.SellingBraemar.com
www.UncompromisingValues.com
www.ChrisAnnCleland.com
Selling Braemar 