Well, it's interesting. For the second year in a row we are noticing a lot of activity during a time of the year that most people write off as non-productive. We have 6 homes under contract in the last 7 days. We've even been able to settle on a couple of short sales and foreclosures that have been sitting for months without resolution. It seems that anything that shows well and is priced CORRECTLY is selling quickly. We have a garage townhome in Kingstowne under contract in 2 weeks. Why? It has a brick front, 3 bedrooms, hardwoods on the main and lower level and the sellers let us put the right price on to begin with, instead of chasing the market down like a lot of unfortunate sellers do.

I've got some stats here, courtesy of MRIS (our multiple listing service). I'll start with zip codes 22315 and 22310. These are closest to our office in the Kingstowne area and are remarkably accurate in giving us a feel for the market and it's movements. We check it daily. There are 258 properties available. That's everything from a 1 bedroom condo to  million dollar homes. There are 89 under contract. That's a 34% absorption rate. Not bad, considering that a short time ago we were hovering at 325 units for quite some time. But there's more: a lot of these are new homes, not even built yet. A number of them show really badly, and a lot of them are way overpriced so those won't sell. So the good ones are selling.

Out of the 258, 127 are detached. 40 are under contract for an absorption rate of 31%. This figure no doubt is affected by the older homes that are in 22310, many of which are short sales.

There are 89 townhouses on and 40 under contract for an absorption rate of 43%. This is GOOD news that you don't hear about from the local media. Contrast that with 12-18% absorption rates of earlier in the year. The amounts that prices have come down and the super-low interest rates are starting to kick in.

Condos---39 are available and 11 are under contract---28% absorption rate.

In Lorton the numbers tell a very positive story. There are 198 properties on the market and 100 under contract. That's a whopping 51% absorption rate. People like newer homes. Lorton has them and they've been beaten up for a long time price-wise.

Springfield is not far behind. There are 441 homes on the market and 210 under contract for a 48% absorption rate.

Alexandria comes in with 1023 homes available and 300 under contract for a 29% absorption rate. This encompasses a wider area and would need to be more specific to glean the meaning. For example it's tough to compare a townhouse in Old Town with some areas that are further out and having problems with a lot of foreclosures and short sales still hurting the neighborhood.

What does all this mean? Well, each year inventory seems to go down around this time. Some sellers are tired of the process and don't want their homes on around the holidays so they take them off. Others decide to start the process after the New Year, so they wait to put them on. And, because we are in the DC Metro area, there are always people buying and selling, so the good ones that are value-priced are selling. That keeps inventory down right around now.

At Tom & Cindy and Associates we always advise those thinking of selling to go on right after the first weekend of the new year. Our spring market doesn't begin when the azaleas bloom. It begins right after people put away the Christmas tree, say goodbye to the relatives, and start thinking about where they want to move. There is less competition then and lots of interested buyers.

Tom Pietsch