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September housing numbers
BY BILL FREEHLING
The Fredericksburg-area housing market continued to show signs of improvement in September, with sales and prices both rising from the year before.
Statistics released Wednesday by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. also indicated that bank financing is getting easier to obtain, and that foreclosures are becoming less common.
The median price for a home sold through the Multiple Listing Service in the Fredericksburg region last month was $220,000, up 10 percent from September 2011.
There were 335 homes sold, 7 percent better than a year ago. Fourteen of the sales were for $500,000 or more.
Foreclosures made up just 14 percent of total sales. During the peak of the housing crisis in early 2009, foreclosures accounted for nearly half the total.
About 36 percent of the homes sold in September were purchased using conventional bank loans, the highest percentage since July 2008. Fewer people are now using loans backed by the federal government, although those remain a
Homes that sold last month spent about 62 days on the market, down 29 percent year-over-year. Homes sold for about a 4.5 percent discount to list price on average.
There were about 1,485 homes on the local market at the end of September, meaning there was about a 4.4-month supply. Anything below five months is considered a healthy balance between supply and demand.
The Fredericksburg area comprises the city and Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania and Stafford counties.
Bill Freehling: 540/374-5405
Email: bfreehling@freelancestar.com
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Median sales prices* Sept. '12 Aug. '12 Sept. '11 Fredericksburg $281,500 $264,900 $194,500 Stafford $268,450 $275,000 $218,950 Spotsylvania $202,000 $206,000 $190,000 Caroline $142,100 $139,450 $138,000 King George $227,500 $272,900 $222,450 Orange $163,000 $175,000 $175,000 Fauquier $292,000 $296,500 $281,000 Culpeper $217,900 $212,500 $165,500 Fredericksburg area** $220,000 $234,000 $200,000 * The median is the middle price. For example, if 11 homes were sold, the median would be the price of the sixth-most-expensive home (the middle one). We use this figure because extremely expensive or inexpensive homes can skew averages. The average sales price tends to be higher than the median. For example, the Fredericksburg-area average sales price for September was $246,285. ** This area-wide median home sales price includes all of Fredericksburg and Stafford, Spotsylvania, Caroline and King George counties. --Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. |