At a later date I'll integrate August into the rest of the year for total sales results, but doing the below serves our purposes today just as well. What it shows is that we are still on track to be slightly ahead of sales in 2009 in terms of dollars for residential. As regards land sales, we are still lagging and the gap increases between 2009 sales and 2010 with each month that we complete.

That said, here are the numbers, and yes, it is true that rounded up we are at the same approximate dollars for residential 2009 and 2010--I double checked.

Residential   2009 vs. 2010 (5 counties, Northern Neck and Essex)

# sold	34 in 2009	30 in 2010
Total $ sold	$9.2 million	$9.2 million
Avg. sales price	$271,000	$307,000
Median sales price	$201,000	$256,000
Avg. DOM	253	204
Median DOM	137	153

Land   2009 vs. 2010 (5 counties, Northern Neck and Essex)

# sold	10 in 2009	7 in 2010
Total $ sold	$1.11 million	$800,000
Avg. sales price	$111,000	$114,000
Med. sales price	$39,500	$67,500
Avg. DOM	136	284
Med. DOM	65.5	147

Well the news hasn't been good. Every direction you turn there is new news that seems to suggest that we are going down hill. I try to stand back and look at this jumble of information and make sense of it. Sure, you can be depressed and anxious and decide that all is going to hell in a handbasket, or you can look at the picture in a broader sense.

Throughout all this recovery discussion I didn't really think we could turn things around from the last quarter of 2008 so very quickly. It didn't seem possible since so many things were structurally wrong. The fact that the country as a whole tends to be used to the quick fix, and so obviously that would happen here, doesn't work anymore. The whole point is that we are not in a situation that is "quick." And since we didn't quickly get into this, then we aren't going to quickly get out.

The fact that so much of what we do is based on emotion is shown by the things that happen that don't make much sense. The stock market went up and did quite well based on improving information. That was nice. But the fundamentals weren't changing radically, still there was a progression that was positive rather than negative and so there was not a rush, but a gentle move to invest more. The media gets on the train to make the spin sound positive (or negative)....it is never boring because then you wouldn't watch them--as if what they had to say is important. Isn't it sad that we live in a world that seems to need to feed us euphoria or anxiety and mostly anxiety.

When I lived in Washington, DC I had the privilege of working with Samuel Beer, American history professor emeritus from Harvard. He was working on a book and I was helping with that as a desktop publisher. There was plenty of discussion associated with the government and turmoil at that time and when I'd start to discuss something with him he would respond with something akin to, well this is a great long-standing experiment and we've done very well--that's what America is. And you'd have to agree, it's true.

In another life, in college, I took a course on Celtic Civilization. I thought I knew at that time who the good guys and the bad guys were related to what was going on in Ireland. By the time the course was over it was clear that there was such a back and forth, promises and broken promises, lies and cheating, elevated persons and low persons during many centuries, that the current situation is a mixture of all of it. It just isn't simple. The same thing is true of where we are in this country now. 

We are struggling with jobs. We are struggling with a bunch of other factors. But fundamentally I believe what we have lost, which is saddest of all, is the ability to have good relationships. I don't mean relationships with friends and family. I mean relationships with parties we can trust. Everything has gotten too big. Banks aren't there for you, they are there for your money. Going to the doctor you almost feel as if you owe them to get out the door quickly. Caring, empathy, for the client or the patient or whomever seems to have totally taken a back burner to the goal of profit over performance.

Little things concern me. That statistic that young adults poled under the age of 22 have lost 40% of the empathy of those poled 10 years earlier based on the fact that they do most of their interaction via the Internet or texting. Then a more recent little tidbit said that for the kids of today email isn't fast enough, that texting is the only way to go. Have you ever sat with anyone who texts or is waiting to receive a text message? Have you felt like a second class citizen in that position? There is no one on one with this type of person--they are disconnected and waiting for the next little technology stimulation.

I am to a fair degree a technology person. I didn't learn about them or use them in college but by the mid-1980s was introduced to the Mac and have been working in one way or another with them since that time. I really enjoy my interaction and use of the computer.  People ask if I play games on it, and I say, well, no because what it is to me is a big pencil. I want it to do its job and then I want it to go back in the drawer. I think that computers and technology have moved into a realm they were never meant to be in. They were never meant to take the place of relationships...they were to be a sophisticated pencil. I don't know where all of this will lead, but good relationships and social responsibility is key to our being a better and more successful country. Me first just doesn't cut it.

So you are asking yourself, why did she write all this stuff and how does it relate to real estate. First, we are in a much better position than the fall of 2008 when things could have totally fallen apart. Second, thinking that the highly stressed economic situation could just slowly disappear without any sort of pain (and I know there are plenty of people who are feeling great pain, but there are also plenty who have been doing reasonably or more than reasonably well at this time). Our part of the country is doing quite well. Richmond may have had a bad month for numbers but all in all they are doing quite well. Our numbers here on the Northern Neck are better than last year's. Although there is no question that we are affected by what happens within the whole United States we do not have to be overwhelmed by the negative information. We can make informed choices. You can not put your life on hold completely out of fear.

This past week a little waterfront cottage up the street closed. It was put on the market and went under contract 6 days later. It closed within a month. It was financed and there was no trouble with the appraisal. The selling price was only a couple of percentage points under the asking price. Sure, this is the exception, but it shows that there is movement in the system. There are people who calculate their risks and make decisions to move forward because standing still may be the choice they regret the most. Only  you can evaluate your situation, but be sure you step back and look at your situation in the world and not the one that seems to invade from every quarter.

We've been away for a few days and that always changes how you look at things, at least for a brief while. Somehow the Northern Neck looks and feels more wonderful than before. For all the glories of being elsewhere, for all the opportunities those places provide, there is something very special about our part of the world.

The numbers released this week from the National Association of Realtors are interesting. The biggest drop in sales month-to-month in 15 years took place using this past July vs. June as the indicator. Based on this scary number I've already spoken with someone with a house listed at this time who said they would take their property off the market right after Labor Day given how bad the market was. Some local perspective was given and is outlined below.

Last evening when I got home I couldn't resist seeing what the August numbers were telling us. And also, much as I want to see 2010 outstrip 2009 in sales, it would be sufficient for them to be level...that would tell us a lot more than month-to-month numbers for the whole country. So guess what? Our numbers do not reflect those very broad numbers. Also, the month-to-month is such a strange indicator, if it can indicate anything (my thought is if you have these numbers all lined up month after month, year after year then they tell a story but in isolation they can cause a stronger reaction than may be appropriate)....that said, here's our numbers.

The charts below show comparisons of January 1 through August 24 for 2009 vs. 2010. First it is for Residential properties and then for Land. As you can see, we at a local level are just rolling along. Oh, and one more thing. I pointed out to this seller that often there is a bit of a lull right around Labor Day and then people who have been looking all summer have their kids off to school and then focus on deciding and purchasing. The 6 weeks or so after Labor Day can be a very active real estate period. So let's not see 2010 as a bust since our market has improved over 2009. It is still a real opportunity for buyers and for sellers. We're doing fine.

RESIDENTIAL

	2009 (Jan. 1-Aug. 24)	2010 (Jan. 1-Aug. 24)
# properties sold	206	208
Sales dollars	52,415,000	56,506,000
Avg. sales price	254,000	271,000
Median sales price	193,000	183,000
Avg. days on market	223	241
Median days on market	153	161

LAND

	2009 (Jan. 1-Aug. 24)	2010 (Jan. 1-Aug. 24)
# of properties sold	96	80
Sales dollars	12,152,000	8,856,000
Avg. sales price	126,000	110,000
Median sales price	80,000	66,750
Avg. days on market	292	317
Median days on market	209	199

This is the time when the summer turns from flat out to having a touch of fall. It isn't the change in the heat or the humidity. Certainly the fact that it is not light so early and that the fall shorter days are moving our way can be felt. The cicadas are more of a presence in their calling and the osprey nests are by and large empty of the fledges. Only once in a while does a youngster return trying to figure out just what happened to that simple life when all was provided. 

There is seemingly both more and less activity in the marketplace. And you may ask, well how does that make any sense. Those parties who have been looking to purchase property over the summer may finally realize that now is the time to move on something. They have looked, they have considered and now they are knowledgable. This is all for the good, for more information and more perspective makes an informed buyer.

Then there is the slowing down of the market just because families are so busy with kids going back to school and looking at the fall requirements...the changes that come with the school year. Many of the families that may have been considering a purchase often push that issue onto the back burner for a couple more weeks as they collect bicycles and other toys and organize them back home at the end of summer. For those of us who have been innundated by weekenders in our communities it is a sort of bittersweet changing of the guard. The quiet and the solitude is quite nice, but the winter seems long without many people around and by springtime you are truly ready to see that activity grow and grow.

Two weeks ago there was some sort of a regatta out on the Rappahannock. I don't know precisely what it was, though I'm sure that most of the boats were launched from the Naylors campground. It was 25 or so very nice motorboats that seemed to be all meeting and taking off together on a day trip. Haven't seen that sort of concentration in a long time and that was a good sign.

An exceptional summer has taken place here at the river. It is obvious by the number of campers and the activity here that many people took great delight in being on or in the water this past summer. That's what it is really about. The Northern Neck is a part of the world where even if you aren't right on the water, you can feel it is right there...just out of sight, with a beauty and expansiveness which is available to us all.

Yesterday, for a bit of time in the morning, I went to one of my favorite places, Garner's Produce to pick flowers. As you probably already know, I have often put together fairly large numbers of flower arrangements for them to take to their many farmers markets. For that effort I receive some special perks, among them access to their field of flowers at off times, or just when I need a bucket of flowers.

As I drove over there I was caught up in how the summer has been overwhelming with its heat and drought, and how they are already starting to harvest some of the corn near me. Looking at that effort I wonder what in the world can that dried up stuff be used for? Granted, the corn that I have brought home from Garners (and I realize this has nothing to do with corn planted for animal feed) has been terrific and for weeks and weeks. Yes, they have been irrigating, otherwise there couldn't have been this sweet wonderful corn.

Given the harsh summer weather you would hardly have expected me to have been met with what might have been seen as an obstacle. When I arrived there, and there hadn't been any real indication at home which is ten minutes away, it was raining. It was so unusual to have rain. It was totally unexpected and so for a few minutes I enjoyed the company of Laura Garner who was cleaning up, and moving produce around and making the stand as crisp and cared for as it can be. Then I decided, well I better get going on my flower picking project.

For a time it was a drizzle out there, but for a while it rather poured. In picking flowers, and seeing the vast hordes of goldfinches feasting on the ripening sunflower seeds, I thought about how it is all in how you see it. Not a novel concept. We hear it all the time, but how well do we apply it? Had I wanted to I might have looked at this as a moment that was ruined by the rain. It hadn't been in my plan...nothing in my anticipating giving myself this hour or so to myself allowed for rain. It was supposed to be brilliant colors and sky and moments. And if you totally took on what was happening and the effects of the rain and the response of the plants then it was beyond one's imagination. What came to mind was a new phrase which perhaps we'd consider plausible especially in light of this summer's heat and drought and that is that "it rained with my parade." I loved it. My parade was my experience and time taken with the flowers; the rain only made it better.

Does this in any way relate to real estate? Yes, and no. We choose to see things in a certain light. We've been given too much information to process and if we choose to let it all in then we can't make decisions. Can I promise that the market is getting better and everyone is safe in making choices at this time? Of course not and there isn't a single major economist out there who is "right" and if they are then there are dozens of other major economists who disagree and we have no way of knowing this "right path" until after it has become a fact. Then do we have the opportunity to make educated choices and move our lives forward rather than waiting for the rain, the obstacle, to get out of our way? Of course we do. To allow the swirling media barrage to fade into the background, to skip some of the personal day-to-day conflicts which seem so closeby and find a path to the future that is comfortable (although there is no way to know its perfect) is far better than seeing obstacles that aren't there. This isn't to say we all need rose-colored glasses since obviously there is a clear reality of things such as financing and ability to own a property, but be careful what you allow to limit you. Find your own educated truth in the field of flowers.

Good morning,

This is an anniversary of sorts. Just a year ago, give or take a few days, I started to write this blog and explore what the market was doing then and continues to do today. There are always questions to be answered, ways of looking at things that change based on the specific problem and just the awareness that generalizations out there in the media don't always apply. The words "nothing is selling" simply doesn't apply to the Northern Neck!

As you've seen in the information that just predates this, we caught up dollar-wise with 2009 at the conclusion of July 2010. That is a good thing. You can't say that nothing is happening when the dollars year-to-date are equivalent to the same time period in 2009. And as projected, sales are quite brisk this month given the inventory of "under contract" and "pending" properties previously noted as well. In looking at what closed in the last two weeks there were 31 properties in the 5 counties (both residential and land). That's quite a few, and although only 5 of them were at a price point exceeding $400,000, this is great. This kind of information is truly encouraging.

I'd like to ask you if you have a moment and are so inclined, to please write to me and let me know what you like, what you don't like, what you'd like to hear more about etc., related to this site. It is a pleasure to have this ongoing dialog and the more people I hear from the better I can perhaps be at this. Feel free to write to kam129@aol.com.

Later on today I may continue about a number of topics, but with the heat a little less oppressive, I'm going out to do a handful of errands before official obligations kick in. My thanks to you. --Kathryn

Price point	2009 # sold	2010 # sold	2010 # active
0-150,000	60	66	126
151,000-250,000	56	37	246
251,000-500,000	49	44	372
501,000-750,000	19	24	170
751,000+	6	6	132
1,000,000+ (a subset of 751+)	1	3	60

The chart above represents residential properties in the four counties of the Northern Neck and Essex County from the first of the year through the end of July, obviously for 2009 and 2010.

What was reported yesterday is that with the 177 properties sold this year, we have just caught up with last years through-July sales in terms of dollars. 2009 had $48,246,220 in sales at this point while 2010 we have had $48,298,810. At least we've caught back up with a good July. Before this we were 10% behind both in numbers of sales and dollars sold.

Land tells a different story and here it is.

Price point	2009 # sold	2010 # sold	2010 active
0-150,000	54	52	856
151,000-250,000	20	6	155
251,000-500,000	14	12	185
501,000-750,000	1	2	28
751,000+	0	0	24
1,000,000+ (subset of $751+)	0	0	18

And to look at other information to compare 2009 and 2010 land sales here's another chart.

	2009 information	2010 information
# sold by July 31	89	72
$ sold by July 31	11,096,543	7,959,820
Avg. sales price	124,680	110,553
Median sales price	85,000	57,250
Avg. days on market	301	314
Median days on market	222	205

A little bit to think about. Residential sales are holding their own in this market while land sales are definitely still declining and with a very large inventory. This still hasn't become a predictable market. Things are happening every day and there's lots of opportunity for buyers. So please give us a call to help you look and find that perfect property. 804-333-3311.

This morning I checked to see what our overall sales numbers were to date, in comparison with 2009. Given the momentum we've had through July, it was my hope and expectation that we caught up for the year. Well that is true we have caught up in terms of dollars. (This is for the 5 counties including the Northern Neck and Essex and for residential only.)

Although 2009 had 190 sales through the end of July and we have had 177 in 2010, the dollars are slightly higher for 2010. 2009 sales were $48,246,270, while 2010 sales were $48,298,810. Not a huge difference, but before we went through July we were definitely lagging in numbers of sales and dollars. This is good news.

With significant numbers of properties in the "under contract" and "pending sale" categories this momentum may well continue for quite a while and that will help 2010.

A little later today I will put up the sales in the different price categories for the same counties, as well as where the inventory stands in each category. I'll do that both for residential and for land. We'll see where we are with the increase/decrease of inventory in each category. Until later!!

Yesterday was a busy day doing alot of sleuthing and visiting. Part of the time was spent going to different properties to preview them for a client. What is nice about working with people you get to know, and know their needs, is that sometimes you can shortcut the process by taking a look and letting them know the attributes of a given property. Just simply knowing what truly has to be there, or what must not be there makes things a lot more clear. Sometimes the photos and the descriptions of the properties through MLS don't tell you everything you want to know. Nothing takes the place of walking through the door and seeing the home with your own eyes.

And although you might think there are no "for sale by owners" (FSBOs) out there because the market is so tough in terms of selling, well there are, and sometimes these might work for a particular instance. I found two that might be worth considering and got to go into one of them. They all serve as information that makes for well-informed clients.

In the middle of the real estate tour, I stopped at a gallery in Colonial Beach to speak with Connie Canby the owner, the watercolor painter and an all-around great creative person. It was fun to catch up a bit and see what she has in the gallery. She's located right down near the waterfront...right near the cafe that was once a gas station--same building. Wide River Gallery is the name and there is a broad range of arts and some crafts available for sale. The prices are quite good and so if you are even looking for a special piece of jewelry, it is worth the visit. I'm hoping that she'll get started on a more active website so that people can learn about new artists and new exhibits. I found that the stories associated with the artists she is showing now were very compelling...very real and forceful. Since I've been a gallery goer for forever...since I graduated from college and started to work in Manhattan in the late 1970s, I have a bit of perspective.

We had lunch that we brought in from the Thai restaurant which is just a minute's walk from her place. I had been hearing about it for months and months and that the owner/chef had come from Northern Virginia. Well I would be very glad if someone of that calibre would move into my part of the world. What a treat!!

Tomorrow I'll try to get started on the numbers for the month so that we can see if 2010 has caught up with 2009 in terms of dollars for residential. Wouldn't that be great!! Here's hoping that July  put us back on track for an improving market. Will let you know.

This morning cool air is seeping into the house from every direction. All of the windows have been thrown open to greet this moment when it is actually cooler outside than the air conditioned temperature. Hard to believe in these weeks of relentless high temperatures, and not something that will last too long. I guess. though, this is one of the benefits of having the moonlight wake you up and deciding to stay up. It feels wonderful.

A few days ago I wrote about the auction of the Inn at Montross. One of the River & Rural agents attended that event and reported back that it sold for $145,000. So someone purchased it at a price where they can put $200,000 into it for the basics and basically will have started off at the recent asking price (pre auction asking price was about $360,000). Since I don't know what dealing with the Inn's needs will entail, I don't know if that is good or bad. Nonetheless it improves the odds that it will have a new life and we can perhaps benefit from the Inn as it is resurrected, or perhaps with a new sort of service.

Just yesterday Anne, one of our agents, listed a home on Naylors Beach Road. These don't come up very often since they stay in families.....and this one is at a very good price. At $325,000 there is the 2 bedroom, one bath home with the living room and kitchen across the waterside of the house. On one side is a glassed in porch area. Then there is a small outbuilding that serves as a "guest cottage" which has a bedroom area and a half bath. All of this property needs a little bit of TLC, but it seems to be cosmetic and nothing else.

There's a deck across the 100 feet of waterfrontage, and then there is a pier. This all overlooks the Rappahannock and is not far from Warsaw--on the Richmond side of Warsaw.... a possible reasonable commute. And it's true, there are the most incredible sunsets.   

And please keep in mind another waterfront deal you shouldn't miss if it meets your needs. This property is off the Potomac, but just by a couple of minutes. There are 5 bedrooms (3 bedroom perk) and an outbuilding with a sleeping loft and bunk beds. It has all the capacity for a great family compound.

Just off the pier and a couple of minutes down the creek toward the Potomac is a sandy spit where I've heard families get together and enjoy swimming with views for miles.

The house simply needs a little TLC in terms of paint and cleaning up. Beyond that it could be a very special property for the right person. It is also off the beaten track, so anyone who is looking to be in a neighborhood would not find this appealing. Anyone who would like to think that they are on their own would be very happy. Think about it. It's a lot of house and plenty of property for an excellent price. $357,000...more than $100,000 under assessed price with a motivated seller.

----------------------------On a whole other subject....sometimes I just can't wait until the end of the month to do numbers, especially if I think something is happening. So as a result I went in and looked at what residential sales the 1st through the 27th of July  looked like in the 5 counties in 2009 and what the numbers look like for 2010. The results are quite positive and so I prematurely report that for both 2009 and 2010 there were 24 residential properties that sold in our 5 counties in that 27 days in July.

In 2009 the total value of the properties sold was $5.56 million,  and the properties sold in 2010 are valued at $8.32 million. That may put us back on track with 2009 rather than behind by 10% in terms of dollars. We'll just see what happens when we have the end of the month figures to work with and combine them with the rest of the year. This looks good!!

Just a quick walk around the block at 7 a.m. and I felt just like I used to when I took a sauna after swimming at a local pool. This is hot. This is humid. This is almost unbelievable, and just the beginning of a very hot weekend. I know, no one needs to remind you of this, but I couldn't help but say something.

Later today the auction will take place for the Inn at Montross. This is a location with a varied past that seems to always resurrect itself and then doesn't make it. Rumor has it that recently a couple of parties have had, or almost had, contracts on this property and not surprisingly they haven't worked out, otherwise, no auction.

Over the years I've know contractors who have done work at the property and they say that it has huge problems, which I'm sure it does. Nonetheless it would be really nice if someone could come in and put it back totally on its feet rather than piecemealing it into something that rises and then falls. In this economy that would really be something.

Part of the problem has always been that the Inn has tried to offer more high-end meals to patrons who don't always arrive. And that makes sense with its old world charm, but it hasn't worked. One would think that because there are a fair number of people living in subdivisions such as Stratford Harbor, Bushfield and Cabin Point and Glebe Harbor that there would be a constituency to take advantage of such a restaurant. But although these people might like a high end restaurant, they would just as soon go to visit someone in a big city (where they generally came from) and go to a favorite there. Until we have a large regular and year-round influx of tourists who have many places to stay and are looking for high-end dining, that probably won't work.

So then what do you do with the Inn? Yesterdays and Angelo's fill a need. The Art of Coffee fills a need. What niche do you try to fill when these old favorites are taking care of a lot of the traffic? Well we'll wait and see the outcome of this auction. I think the asking price with the most recent realtor was in the high $300,000s. Not a lot of money on the face of it, but once you look under the surface the costs of putting this on the map could be tremendous. I'll report in the morning.

Last evening vast dark clouds assembled to the west. They moved in on us slowly, but the wind was quick to arrive. It whipped at the flags and brought whitecaps breaking against the bulkheads and piers, and it was strong. We watched for quite a while in anticipation of the regular pattern....threatening sky, wind and then a circumventing of our part of the world...the pattern of no rain.

This was not to be and it made a huge difference to see the rain pelting down and hitting the ground. After weeks of hardly a drop, there was what seemed, a significant rainfall. This morning I wondered just how significant the rain had been and had to come up with a makeshift way to evaluate it. We don't have a rain gauge, so the only way to figure it out meant relying on my kayak that hadn't been turned over, and is sitting on the deck. Based very much on an estimate using unrefined techniques, the kayak-rain-gauge says about half an inch. Not anywhere near what it felt like, nor what we needed, but probably pretty accurate.

You might think that using the birdbath might work as well if not better. But given the needs of the birds lately, with filling the birdbath at least twice a day, well that would be difficult. Sometimes there is a real line-up of birds jostling each other to get a drink or a bath. Sometimes larger birds just all jump in and splash around and leave next to nothing in the bath. So there are a lot of variables in this option and since the birds would never think to look in the kayak for water since there's been no history of it, that was a safe bet.

We'll need every drop as we move into the five day pattern of 100 or 100+ degree days. Even with the rain it will be back to watering by the end of the day. Water issues are appearing everywhere with the burn ban and then with all sorts of irrigation going on. I'm sure that the demand for water on some water systems is making for difficult times in different locations around the Northern Neck. This is a summer that will be remembered, but not for our favorite things, or at least not all of the time.

On a lighter note, while on my way to an appointment I passed a young couple on the side of the road who were picking up trash. Wearing reflective vests and carrying those special orange trash bags, they were working in the already 90 degree heat. The people who volunteer and adopt a portion of the highway, basically any VDOT road, and generally side roads, are really important.

The amount of trash on the side of the road is one of the things that really startled me when I came here (and it is better now than 18 years ago). How could it be that a place this beautiful could be treated as a trash can? As you spend more time here you see that there are places that are mistreated more than others and also that there is a constant effort to keep the Northern Neck beautiful. Volunteers, like those that I saw yesterday, are an important component to the care of our special part of the world and to them I say, thank you.

Here we are in the middle of the month (well, almost) and I want to analyze what is going on yet I don't have a full month to add to the mix. Given the heat and how demanding being outdoors has been we have seen quite a bit of looking at property recently and that's a real plus. And it must have been that a month or two months ago people were looking pretty seriously because we've had numerous closing thus far in the month of July.

This below chart covers sales from the 1st of July through the 19th this year on residences and land in the five counties (four in the Northern Neck and Essex included). It will be interesting to see what we come up with by the end of the month. With all the price changes, negotiations and also properties coming on the market (sometimes) more attuned to what is really selling, things may be picking up and perhaps we can catch up with the 2009 numbers, rather than running about 10% behind.

Price Point	Residential # sold	Land # sold
0-299,000	6	7
299,001+	9	0

Since I'm always interested in sales of the over the $1,000,000 mark when I saw one in this group I took a real look. The asking price was in the vicinity of $1.8 million and the selling price was about $1.1. That is a rather heavily discounted sales price, and in talking to an agent from the Lancaster county area I understand that some of the very pricey properties down there are going through some radical transformations as prices are reflecting the market.

 

Looking at the last month or so there have been close to 200 price reductions in our system. And some of these are really significant with as much as 20 percent off of the most recent price. Not to say that all prices need to come down, but there still are plenty that do.

Yesterday I looked at a series of houses in the $400,000 to $550,000 price range and there was a spectacular home (price just reduced) for $499,000  and there were terribly overpriced properties pushing the $550,000 mark that didn't hold a candle to the $499,000. It just shows the level of motivation, or awareness, or both.

There was one property that I saw sold recently with the original asking price was in the low $800,000s and the sales price was in the high $500,000s, and it was a gorgeous great house. It took close to two years for it to sell. Things have really changed.

One  house I saw yesterday is now listed below $500,000 and the asking price a couple of years ago was about $650,000. Really, things are changing.

Well on Monday, Steve Andersen of Good Eats was arraigned out on $10,000 bond to return to his life and his restaurant. I keep hoping that all of this will be resolved and settled and that there will be no more news. There are many opinions and rumors flying around associated with all  this and it doesn't seem to be doing anything constructive. We all know this, yet with the unknowns sometimes things are just a bit too fascinating.

The summer has settled into a real routine. The older couple from Richmond who come and spend a long weekend of sorts, arrive on Wednesday, late afternoon and leave Sunday morning. At that time one of my two dogs is the "loaner dog" replacing a black lab of theirs that died a number of years ago. My dog disappears only to reappear in the middle of the night seeking our second dog so that they can go on a couple of hour exploratory mission. They've got their lives worked out pretty well.

Last weekend there was a fundraiser for the Kinsale Foundation and it was held at the Mooring Restaurant. Boy were they lucky to have the one reasonably cool evening in a month. I hadn't thought about it a whole lot, but the majority of the interior of the restaurant was reserved for incoming customers, while those of us who were part of the party for the Foundation were mostly relegated outdoors. Had it been any other evening, the couple of hundred people would have been sweltering and wouldn't have lasted an hour. As it was the event started at 7 and the band started up at 9. Too bad the band hadn't started earlier in that they were terrific. A local group from Westmoreland that just had a great sound.

There were silent auction items and the theme of the event was "Fiesta" so there was an effort by some to dress a little Mexican and there were tacos, etc. for dinner. I haven't heard how well they did, but they had a very good turnout.

Recently I've looked at what is pending and under contract in our area. It looks as if there should be quite a bit of turnover in the next 30 to 60 days. That is good news. I think that if we keep rolling perhaps we can catch up with last year's numbers and that would tell us we are fairly stable in terms of sales in the region. Later on today I'll take a look and give more specifics on this, since it does mean something in terms of activity.

For now we are back in the heat after a little bit of rain. I'm looking to show real estate all day on Saturday, and thankfully at 93 degrees it will be about 10 degrees cooler than when I last took these people out. Guess the heat wave has broken.

-----------------Back again. Here's the results of pendings, under contract with contingencies and under contract with kickout for the 5 counties.

Contract status	# of Residential listings	# of Land listings
Pending	43	11
Under contract w/ contingencies	32	9
Under contract w/ kickout	1	1

If a listing has been tagged "Pending" then it means that all obstacles to closing have been overcome and that it is just waiting for all the paperwork to be pulled together. There is no more home inspection to be done. There is no financing issue outstanding. There is just a timeframe that needs to be gotten through that should in now way affect the deal.

For "Under Contract with Contingencies" there could be a great deal going on. A home inspection could be a deal breaker. Financing may not work out. The property may or may not appraise. The probability of this working out is not the same as with pending....since all sorts of things could happen. My experience has been that most of the time these pull together, but not always.

The "Under contract w/ kickout" relates to a clause in the contract which means that if another offer comes in on the property and the seller wants to consider it or potentially replace the existing contract, the current (1st contract) has to perform within a certain window of time. Generally we are talking about 48 hours or 72 hours, and most often it is a financing issue. So if the 1st contract gets rid of their financing contingency, perhaps by putting a bridge loan in place rather than selling their property, then they will proceed to the closing table.

Anyway, there's quite a bit of inventory that is in these three different designations...in addition to our active inventory.

Yesterday I received questions from a number of people who thought I might be in the know related to a possible arrest of restaurant owner, Steve, at Good Eats. Well I didn't know, although I got a bunch of rumors. Rather than speculate, or even make any calls I decided to pick it up out of the Freelance Star newspaper. It tends to be the case that the Fredericksburg paper has this out quicker than any other paper. Partially because this part of the world is really their beat (and they have a reporter who lives here) and partially because they are a daily. Frank Delano's article gives some perspective on what is going on. No more rumors associated with the possible murder, or suicide.

Essentially what is said is that a protective order was violated and Steve Andersen was taken into custody on Saturday afternoon. He is currently being held in jail until arraignment sometime this morning. If sentenced, he could spend as much as a year in jail and be fined $2,500.

If you want to read the whole article, the below address can be copied and pasted and you'll see the full information.

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2010/072010/07132010/561375

In the regular numbers put up monthly there is a fairly broad brush approach. You can see that there are large numbers of homes in inventory in relationship to the numbers that have sold. What we don't see is how they break out in smaller segments of the market. I've done this now for sales of homes in the 5 counties since the first of the year through the end of June. To a fair degree I don't think that any of this comes as a surprise, but still it is interesting.

Residential (5 county includes NN and Essex)

Price point	# properties sold 1/1-7/1	# properties active
0-99,999	23	30
100,000-200,000	56	223
200,001-300,000	19	190
300,001-400,000	14	171
400,001-500,000	13	122
500,001-600,000	11	99
600,001-700,000	7	62
700,001-800,000	3	35
800,001-900,000	1	37
900,001-1,000,000	0	21
1,000,001+	2	59

At some price points, but not many, there is a reasonable possibility of selling...that of course is at the lower price point. For the below  $100,000 properties there is a likelihood that the property could sell in the next 6 months or so based on how many have sold thus far. This of course assumes that they are priced right. I didn't look at how long some of them have been on, but it may have been years so the new inventory will sell if the sellers haven't gotten realistic.

And with the 100,000 to 200,000, well there being 4 times the inventory as number of sales, that isn't too bad. For the rest we are talking close to or more than a one in ten chance of selling. That puts things in perspective.

Just randomly I looked at one group and found that in the 900,001 to 1,000,000 price point that there are 4 properties that have been on for over 1000 days. That's a lot, and what is more, two of those properties haven't had a price adjustment. That's a problem for the sellers if they really need to sell.

An appraiser would look at the million dollar plus properties and estimate the absorption rate of the inventory. At 2 per 6 month period that would mean probably 4 per year. With about 60 in inventory it would take 15 years to sell th is inventory without any new coming on the market. Might be longer than some can wait.

We'll see more adjustments as some sellers decide that they want to sell and don't want to sit on the fence anymore. For the highest segment in the market, though, I'm a little concerned about where those buyers will come from.

This morning we awoke to rain. Not pelting, driving rain with a purpose, just a bit of continuous and tempting rain. Although you can hope that this will last all day, looking at the sky it lets you know that in an hour or two the clouds that blanket the area will have moved on. Too bad. It looks so promising, but I doubt that it will have much impact--at least not in our little part of the world.

Real estate activity has continued despite the weather (even though I'm sure some people decided that this was too much). I, for one, was thankful when it was quiet for a day or two and I didn't need to drive all over the place in 100+ degree weather.

Friends down the way come for weekends and turn off the air conditioning when they leave. After this most recent week they vow to leave it on at some level since when they walked in the door the thermostat showed 04 which mean 104 degrees. It takes about an hour to start to take a bite off that kind of temperature. Our loaner dog, the one who stays with them when they are down, doesn't like to go over there when they are transitioning the house from very hot to reasonable. Maybe that's the reason they are going to air condition through the week!

A number of the properties I have listed have come down in price recently. The waterfront house that is assessed at $475,000 is now listed at $357,000. The price was just dropped from $375,000 last week. This is the one is 2500 square feet and on 1.1 acres with pier and outbuilding for studio or workshop--also a two car garage, master suite, decks along the front overlooking the water and moments to the Potomac.

Over in Levelgreen, down Sandy Point Road, the sellers have reduced that price to $340,000. This, for a 3400 square foot home on 2 acres in a very nice subdivision near Kinsale. Although it is probably about 7 years old, it has hardly been lived in and is wonderfully spacious. Master suite on one side, bedrooms and another large bath on the other...a large den, a huge (what could be) 3-car garage with an unfinished room upstairs. Since there is a hook up for a washer/dryer in the side where the master suite isn't, it particularly lends itself to two generational living. Who know how this might best be utitilized, but it is a very nice house in a subdivision where kids could ride their bicycles in a real neighborhood.

At Nomini Hall Farm, in the subdivision back behind the recently updated home, we have a 10 acre lot for sale that is waterfront. The asking price is now $109,000. There is in excess of 300 feet of waterfrontage and the water depth is appropriate for canoes and kayaks. Tucked just around the curve from where the Nomini and Beale's Mill Run go their separate ways, it is in a part of the world where the ducks and herons and otters are your most frequent visitors.

Other waterfront properties you should keep in mind include what I call "the gem" in Glebe Harbor, on a point lot with a beautifully executed, architecturally designed home on its own peninsula. In absolutely a like-new state and with wonderful spaces, I've rarely seen a more beautiful house here on the Northern Neck. Located within reason for those seeking a weekend retreat from the DC area or Fredericksburg...it is something to see.

Here at Naylors new on the market is a home built in 2005 with a great room with 2-story space and a fireplace to match. A master suite with large his and hers closets and an oversized bath with its own cathedral ceilings. Two more bedrooms upstairs as well as an unfinished room over the garage. Just a minute walk down to the sand beach and the Rappahannock. A sought after area for those coming from Richmond to the river.

With this little break in the weather we can hope that everyone comes out of hybernation and starts to move around more. Lots of real estate at very good prices makes this a time to be looking. And please keep us in mind to assist you. My thanks.

10:45 a.m. update. Although the sky looked all ready to clear up earlier this morning and I went for a walk "in the rain," experiencing only aslight dampness, now it is raining. The rain is regular and steady and you can almost feel it starting to penetrate the surface of the hard-packed soil. What a relief.

That is what Kelly Liddington, Extension Agent for Richmond county said about the drought that we are experiencing. That never in his 23 years has he seen anything like this series of weeks without rain. And now the process is moving forward to declare the Northern Neck (and I'm sure other areas in Virginia) a drought disaster area. Provided that this approved, and it has to go up the chain of command all the way to the President, then there will be some monies available to the farmers.

In the meantime many of them are watching their corn crops just wither away to nothing. For others, in order to keep their crop insurance they need to put in a crop even though there is not sufficient rain or moisture in the ground to bring about any germination. A Catch 22.

Reading the article in the local newspaper I was reminded of the fact that we had an unusually wet spring where out in the field behind our house there was a standing pond that attracted seagulls forever: You can still see where that section was since a large area was not planted in barley and is still green with the weeds that germinated because there was no other activity there. No herbicides, no plantings. Nothing.

Because of the wetness in the spring the crop was put in later than normal and although it thrived for a while because of all the moisture and seemed well on its way to being a great crop, the drought set in and it stopped right in its tracks. What can I say....we are all feeling this weather. Watering plants, watching lawns brown in ways they never have in June before, looking at crops along the sides of roads. It has been a fierce period of triple digit numbers and their toll shows all around  us. A reminder, though, be very careful with anything that could start a fire--that would be a disaster of man's making that we can well do without.

On a more cheerful note...I finally brought home and tried some of the heirloom tomatoes from Garners Produce just the other day. If you want to taste a tomato that says I am truly a tomato with flavor  so full and real, well then try some of these heirlooms. They are great

We're eating good corn from their stand now too. And I don't know how they are doing it, because there is no rain (probably irrigation).

This past weekend pretty much was a full house at the campground. People were thoroughly enjoying themselves both on the grounds and on the water. It amazes me how well everything goes and how comfortable everyone seems to be. A lot of campers are now staying at the storage area that the owner provides so that people don't have to take their camper to and from home. Don't know what that costs, but I'm sure it is worth it for most.

That's it for now. Drought, tomatoes and campers. Will think of something new tomorrow.

Here we are with the monthly totals in terms of sales and of inventory for the 5 counties (four of the Northern Neck, and Essex). First there's residential and then the land numbers.

Residential

Price $	Units sold 1/1-5/1	Units sold 1/1-6/1	Units sold 1/1-7/1	# on the market 5/1	# on the market 6/1	# on the market 7/1
0-150,000	36	52	59	118	121	119
151,000-250,000	12	18	30	240	240	245
251,000-500,000	18	22	32	332	357	380
501,000-750,000	14	17	19	171	177	185
751,000+	2	2	3	114	130	134

As with previous months, as a seller, I would certainly want to know what my odds were of selling in this market. This type of information makes it pretty clear that you need to be the best of the best in your price point to make a sale. With the more than $750,000 properties, with only three selling and 134 on the market then you have a one in 40 chance to sell...you have to be very ready for that buyer.

Land

Price $	Units sold 1/1-5/1	Units sold 1/1-6/1	Units sold 1/1-7/1	# on the market 5/1	# on the market 6/1	# on the market 7/1
0-150,000	28	39	47	800	841	863
151,000-250,000	2	4	4	139	166	169
251,000-500,000	5	8	10	183	197	195
501,000-750,000	0	1	2	28	29	25
751,000+	0	0	0	20	21	22

The numbers seem to tell the tale. With 10% fewer residential properties having sold in the first half of 2010 than sold in 2009 and 10% approximately fewer dollars changing hands, we're still in a changing market. Time will tell if things will improve for the second half of the year. Will keep you posted.

Good morning,

I'll get to my regular month-to-month numbers together a little later in the day. What I have here is the information related to the first 6 months of 2009 vs. the first 6 months of 2010. As I have been saying, my hope was that things have improved, but the figures show otherwise.

Here they are. Residential in the four counties of the Northern Neck and Essex.

Residential	Jan. 1-June 30, 2009	Jan. 1-June 30, 2010
Number of sales	160	142
Avg. sales price	$261,000	$255,000
Median sales price	$194,000	$175,000
Total sales $	$41.7 million	$36.2 million
Days on Market, High	1049	1445
Days on Market, Avg.	222	253
Days on Market, Median	161	180

So what we have is an approximately 10% reduction in the number of sales with approximately 11% reduction in overall sales dollars. Not an improvement in sales for the year, but not a terrible decline either. Median sales price has been reduced and median days on market has increased.

Now for land sales in the same 5 county area.

Land	Jan. 1-June 30, 2009	Jan. 1-June 30, 2010
Number of sales	62	63
Average sales price	121,000	108,900
Median sales price	85,000	55,000
Total sales $	$7.5  million	$6.8 million
Days on Market, high	1207	1461
Days on Market, average	283	292
Days on Market, median	194	211

At first I was a bit surprised at how well 2010 land sales are standing up in relationship to 2009 and then I realized that there was a huge decrease in sales after the fall of 2008 in terms of sales of land. Sales of land are predominantly cash, or are on parcels where the prices have come way down so that financing can occur. We still have a huge inventory (which will be exhibited later today when I do my monthly update) and so this pattern of land sales will probably continue. Good deals, reasonable prices and those waiting on the sidelines are finding this a good time to take advantage of some sellers needs to really sell property.

Good morning and welcome to a most glorious 4th of July weekend. Every which way you turn people are showing up in droves and looking forward to a weekend of fun and family...and surely plenty of on-the-water time.

As I drive around the Northern Neck I'm seeing more and more license plates from different states. In the last few days I've seen Texas, Ohio, Florida, New York as well as the fairly often-seen Maryland and North Carolina. Many people are here from other parts of the world and that is good for our economy here.

In regard to the numbers, I will get to them up by later today or first thing in the morning. What I've been hoping to be able to report is that the year is progressing in such a manner that 2010 is a better sales year than 2009. Based on what I looked at mid-month, that won't be true. But there was a real rally of sales in the second half of June that makes our numbers pretty good in relationship to 2009.

You probably know that there was an article in the Times Dispatch earlier this week related to the medical examiner releasing cause of death for Sally Rumsey, the co-owner of Good Eats. The report says that she died of exposure. And there is speculation that this was a suicide, but that hasn't been proven conclusively and so there is still more work to be done, according to the article in order to know what happened.

In the meantime, the restaurant reopened in April and is doing good business offering very good food to those in the Kinsale area or to those who travel to that little restaurant on the corner of 202 and 203.

The break in the weather has really been a treat and it is hard to believe that probably by tomorrow we will be back to the closed-up, air conditioning-on state again. Yesterday when I went for a walk there was dew on the grass and it was actually cold. So it's true, it can get cool in July, if only for a brief moment.

So, I'll update what the sales have been to date this year, as well as compare 1st half of 2009 with first half of 2010 both for residential and for land. That's it for the moment since I have to get ready to get out and show some property!

Yesterday afternoon I must have experienced what farmers have felt for thousands of years...a very deep wish for rain.

As the clouds circled around and the sounds of thunder off in the distance started my routine of turning off computers, unplugging them as well as unhooking the phone lines, and checking windows on cars, I was so hopeful that this would be an event.

A call from my husband in Tappahannock as he stopped for an errand, told me that there were buckets of rain coming down within just a couple of miles as the crow flies. Boy was I hopeful.

The corn is looking really stunted. All sorts of flowering bushes that have never looked stressed before are considering giving up altogether. These front yards on the river need constant attention, otherwise they will just look totally scorched.

A friend of mine in Maryland who has a golf course said to me that they rarely have to water the zoysia grass and when it does happen it is in August. This year they started just before mid-month and have had to water constantly to hold onto their grass.

We had no rain to make mention of. A sprinkling of water must have evaporated in less than 5 minutes. It was a non-event and was sad. I have been in the position before where it rained in my location on a fairly regular basis when all around, just within a couple of miles, there was nothing for weeks on end. I guess what I'm now experiencing is the flip side.

My husband talked to Kelly Liddington, the Farm Extension agent at some place like Food Lion and Kelly said he'd gotten rain a couple of times in the last couple of weeks. Again, he's not that far from us by crow-fly distance, perhaps 5 or 6 miles and his experience is completely different.

Let's hope that the rain comes to us soon before many plants just decide they can't cope and the corn becomes a loss to the farmers.

There are a lot of different factors that come into play when someone wants to purchase a home on the water. When people start on their quest it may be a bit daunting to help them find what they truly want, since often they may not have a clear picture. A series of MLS sheets with information may be a good beginning, but truly, only by spending time with a client do their actual needs come clear. Looking at the MLS sheet, little tricks such as how much waterfrontage does it have, may tell you how closeby the property is to their neighbor and help you better understand if it is something you might look at or not. But always check with your realtor for this may not be absolutely true. Generally, though, if there is 60 feet of waterfrontage, the house is very close to the neighbor.

First you have to consider what location. I find that there are a huge variety of needs that clients have related to location. Some want only on the Potomac or Rappahannock Rivers. Others are open to the creeks, but require that they open onto one river or the other. Some need to be near to a particular creek because good friends live there. Sand beach may or may not be a need.

Some parties are concerned about travel time, whether it is from Fredericksburg, Washington, DC, Richmond. They won't travel longer than "X" amount of time in order to get to their destination.

You then have issues of waterfront in terms of depth of water for the type of boat and also the kind of pier that may or may not come with the property. Anyone who is putting a pier out on big water should think twice and learn about what goes on during big storms in that locale, also what an insurance company will and will not cover....piers, hmmmm.

The type of view is also important. And that view may be at odds with the practicality of having a pier off the property.

Sometimes a client simply wants to be able to view wildlife in an unspoiled habitat and be able to slide a canoe or kayak into the water.

Certain clients are willing to maintain a larger property while others want exclusively to have a smaller lot. Sometimes community amenities and possibly being fairly close to a neighbor is a good thing while at other times it is a problem.

This doesn't begin to touch on the issues of the size of the home and the age of the home, nor the attitude that the home has, meaning is it open and airy, or is it older and so it is somewhat more utilitarian (built in the time when the house wasn't the main component of being at the river... when getting onto the water and having enough room to hang a change of clothes in one closet was sufficient).

What I have found is that people are looking for a real deal these days and they generally don't want to take on renovation. They want the perfect home now. I realized that something I've known for a long time makes a very big difference in how this works for people.

Years ago, say twenty or thirty years, (even more) many people came down here and built second homes. It may not feel that way to people who are discovering the Northern Neck in 2010, but it is true. When looking for a property, notice how many of the listings come from the 1980s or even the 1970s. At that time those property purchasers bought the best waterfront lots they could find and I would bet didn't pay more than $60,000 or $70,000 and then put a house on the lot (maybe even less).

When you go out and look at properties, often the most gorgeous lot has a home that dates back to that time. The property owner may have updated it, which hopefully means that they were able to open it up and enlarge the kitchen and have an open large room that overlooks the water. Beyond that, they have overcome the pink tile and smaller bathrooms of the 1970s to make the house something sought after. But that isn't an easy thing to do so a rather costly property may consist of a great lot in a great location, but a house that isn't quite what you'd like.

Then you find other homes that are closer to what you'd expect for the "perfect getaway" on the Northern Neck. These consist of homes placed on lots that aren't perfect (they don't have the perfect view or the sand beach but have a lot going for them), yet there's a great house--new, great floorplan, excellent systems such as heating, air conditioning, plumbing and electric-- on the lot.

Then there are lots that were sold fairly recently when the prices were sky-high and the owner decided to cash in on a property that previously hadn't been on the market. Between the cost of the lot (recently, in the last 5 years) and the cost of the newly-constructed house these homes are priced out of a reasonable price point for many who would like to stay below $400,000 in their purchase.

It's just plain economics...if there wasn't the investment in the lot of $250,000 or $300,000 instead of $60,000 or so, then you wouldn't have a house that costs $600,000 and is above the price point you might be interested in.

In the end the house can be changed to suit your needs, but the land can't be changed. A good lot with a house with "good bones," certainly puts you in a better position to have your best property.

Even though there is a lot of inventory on the market. Even though there is fair interest in these properties, many of the owners bought them as second houses. The owners may have them paid them off and so, even if they'd like to sell them, they aren't horribly pressed to do so. Prices may have come down but not to anything bargain basement (mostly this is true, not exclusively)....just a little while ago I looked at some solds and saw that a property sold at about 50% of the asking price of 3 and a half years ago, but the price was a big one in 2007.

(Inventory in waterfront properties in the 5 counties at the $300,000 to $425,000 price point included 93 properties. Sales in that same category include 8 since the beginning of the year. These properties aren't flying off the shelf and more come on every week.)

Keep in mind, too, what you want the property for. Is this a second home to enjoy while on weekends away and on vacations? Do you still view this purchase as an investment similar to purchasing stocks with the expectation that you have to walk away with X% more in the coming years? What is this really? If you have time, say 10 years or more until you would need to sell, then isn't this an investment in life style and not in appreciation. The property should appreciate if the economy remains stable, but none of us knows for sure.

The tradeoffs of what you are getting for your dollars come into play in purchasing a waterfront home now. If one sees the market at near its low or at its low, then now is the time to act. If one is acting now, then prioritizing what a property is needed for is most important. Then those things that aren't essential can either go by the wayside, or be cared for in another way.

As you can see to simply look for a waterfront house isn't simple.

There really isn't too much more to say than that. The corn looks beaten up in a way that I don't think I've seen in 20 years during June. Everything is slower and it affects even showing real estate. Can't blame anyone--who would want to go out of their way to spend too much extra time driving around when it is 100 degrees?Yet I keep hearing, and we can hope, well in a couple of weeks it will be better. Well yes, it could be for certainly it can be cool in July.

The weather will change some and we won't be at this 100 degree mark forever and the humidity could come down too. There are people who seem to thrive on the heat. A number of groups in the campground are in tents and not in their RVs. And lots of people are in the river cooling off in the middle of the day. There are boaters out on the river and a fair number of jet skis. It is summer and people will enjoy it on the river. (As an aside, it always amuses me to see the DirectTV satellite dishes set up next to the RV or the tent. All the comforts of home.)

A few days ago as I was driving over the little Cat Point Creek bridge near here and  I saw one man who was fishing, but had decided that lying in the water and holding onto his fishing rod was the best way to fish, given the heat. Can't fault him for that, I just think that maybe he needed one of those low beach chairs so he didn't have to prop himself up.

The "winter wheat" is gone...collected up by the combine a few days ago. With it went the dogs' playground full of rabbits. Soon, though, there will be soybeans coming up and within 6 weeks that field will provide the right kind of habitat for rabbits. In the meantime a cornfield across the street that was insignificant a month ago now has corn 5 feet tall--I'm sure it provides some challenges for the rabbit-addicted.

Oh, and the heat is good for some things. I find that there are fewer catfish carcasses dropped by osprey and collected by my dogs (they dry out quickly and don't have some wonderful attraction for them) and also the dead skunk that they found recently and have been rolling in is obviously melting into the ground. I don't like having to clean stinky dogs on a regular basis....so the heat is really good.

What does this have to do with real estate?....not much. What does it tell you about living in the country? Well you be the judge.

I'm waiting for the month to finish up so that I can look at how well we did in June. Early indications show this has been a slow month. That kind of information is showing up in the newspapers related to other areas in Virginia as well, so we'll probably be in agreement with the overall Virginia trend.  Give me a few days and I'll let you know.

To Friday, the day of slight reprieve after a scorching Thursday!

Here we are, the first day of summer and I feel as if we've been experiencing it for a month. Then again with some of the hottest temperatures recorded in the area for the first part of June, there's plenty of reason for that.

Even though the heat keeps some of us indoors most of the time, except early morning and evening, there are some real benefits from it. How many mosquitos have you seen lately? And the ticks that were around earlier in the spring have hibernated because of lack of water. Even the May flies have greatly diminished, and yes May flies prevail into June on a regular basis, but this year they haven't done so well.

For those who have vineyards, surely the lack of rain has reduced the amount they've needed to spray, and that is a cost saving and also potentially improves the quality of the grapes for the end of the season. Of course a lot depends on how much rain we get toward harvest time, so they may or may not have the sugar concentration they are looking for.

Yesterday evening I stopped at my favorite farm stand, Garners near Nomini Granary, to find that the local corn is now available. Wonderful! So there was something very fresh to add to our on-the-grill dinner and it was a treat. The corn will be rolling in now and we'll have it for weeks.

I talked with one of the women who works there and she told me that the Early Girl tomatoes are from the farm and that obviously the squash is. The beans are beautiful and look tender and just right in their waxy yellow, or pale green. Eggplant is from the farm and I'm sure she told me other things.

Sunflowers abound in the field across the street and they are cutting them both for the farmer's markets and for the stand itself. The flowers they plant for cut flowers are just at a point where they can be picked. A friend of mine is supposed to cut for them, and then I make up bouquets in the evening. So tomorrow Tuesday, I'll see what they have and get started on my once a week extra job. I can't begin to tell you how inspiring it is to work with all those beautiful colors. It is energizing.

Rivahfest over in Tappahannock seemed to be quite well attended. I went over to take photos of the drawing for the kayaks that the Friends of the Refuge has had for the last three or four years. It is a good deal, really, with only 500 tickets printed and two nice kayaks being the prize for one individual. Turned out that a woman from Essex county won which was different, since I think the last couple of years the people have been from out of the Northern Neck area.

Real Estate....hmmmm.... there was a fair amount of interest approximately two weeks ago. I've found the last few days pretty quiet, although there are two properties I'm working with where there are potential buyers who are thinking things through. With a new listing I got late last week there were two showings over the weekend, but you can't tell a whole lot from that. Sometimes it is just the neighborhood wanting to check out a home they've never been in before. You just can't know. But activity is activity and all this is good, I'm sure though, that we realtors would wish there'd be more.

We're not quite there, but I'm anticipating putting up the numbers for June right around the 1st of July. What I've seen thus far is that we are running similarly to last year's numbers. This is neither good nor bad. We sold some last year and continue to, it is just I'm looking for that beginning of a recovery. And no, I don't think it will be a recovery that looks like 2006, but more like a reasonable steady number of sales that shows people are comfortable moving forward with their lives by buying their next home. Soon we'll see if we're moving in that direction.

In a recent posting I said I'd look into the numbers of land parcels that have been on the market continuously for a long time. That is what I've just completed. Below is a chart I find quite interesting where you will see based on the designations we have in our MLS, waterfront, non-waterfront, water view and water access, the numbers on the market currently, then those that have been on for more than 24 months straight, and finally the numbers that have sold this year. As always this is for the four counties of the Northern Neck and Essex.

As an aside, I recently spoke with someone who thought that water access was a silly designation given where we live. And I can understand that. In the MLS committee we discussed that a number of times, and just before I resigned there was a strong inclination based on a recommendation from a member to just have waterfront and non-waterfront. Then within waterfront there would be check boxes to explain if there was actual waterfront which of course would have a view and access, or if it was within a subdivision where there was just a view and access, or simply access. The designation water access relates to being within a subdivision and having access through that subdivision to a boat ramp, or marina...not accessing the water via some sort of public location.

Back to the chart. So here it is and in checking into this I was surprised that there were properties particularly in the non-waterfront category that have been on continuously since 2005. A couple that I checked had the prices drop and then soar and then drop again. Wow. That is patience....or something.

Land, 5 counties.

Type of property	# sold from 1/1/2010 to 6/17/2010	# active on market	# active on market for 2 years or more
non- waterfront	25	605	228
water access	8	171	40
water view	1	35	6
waterfront	23	466	110

With 1277 lots on the market and 57 sold this year thus far there is an incredible amount of inventory. Within the non-waterfront there are many many subdivisions which either never sold out, or were in process when it looked as if the real estate market would just go on and on and up and up forever. These have a real impact on the numbers of non-waterfront lots. We'll see how land goes throughout this year, while at the moment to say it is struggling is of course an understatement. Not to be boring or repititious, but time to be the best property in your category if your a seller.

When I moved here, almost twenty years ago, I felt that this was a kind of wasteland, especially in the winter. It felt quite similar to when I first moved to Manhattan right out of college. There seemed to be no friendly harbor in the storm; everything seemed to be empty. Out of college the tall buildings had no personality, no life and certainly no friends of mine in them. Here, driving down every road in the beginning, there just seemed to be nothing.

 I learned to live in Manhattan and every which way I turned offered a friend, a remembered experience, a bookstore, a gallery, the park with concerts or running or bicycling, or another opportunity to stop and experience things. It became a totally full and enriching environment.

The same thing happened here. Later today I will go to Northumberland county to do a number of things, some of it includes working at the courthouse looking up records. Another portion of it will be spent with someone I've known for a long time, evaluating their house in terms of what needs to be done before it is put on the market. Beyond condition issues such as painting, we need to discuss price and understand just what the market is doing now. Given that they would really like to sell, at least by the end of the year, we have to be realistic and for many that is still not easy to take.

In thinking about what I need to do in Northumberland and what I'd like to do I realize that there is so much out there. If I did everything I wanted to do I'd be there for days.

So when you think about moving here, perhaps purchasing a second home and you wonder about being a full time person, realize that it can get very busy. There are two sets of author discussions here on the Northern Neck offered by the Northumberland Public Library and the Friends of the Rappahannock Library, here in Warsaw. There is also a group that puts on author dinners in Tappahannock. There are the master naturalists and the master gardeners and the courses for those studies are quite considerable and bring you in contact with a lot of resources. The Audubon Society, the Refuge people (with their quarterly "Naturally Speaking" series, beekeepers, the Rappahannock Art League and their many courses, the museums....goodness all that goes on in Reedville at the Fishermen's Museum and if you joined you could become a docent. There are many different thrift shops, some of which benefit different church programs and the most recent one, the one for the Haven supports their activities...and needs.

That doesn't even begin to include the marinas and the boating, fishing, kayaking, sailing opportunities--or the fact that there are a number of great golf courses around and some rather reasonable prices. In the beginning everything feels far away because,  yes, you have to drive, but once you get used to it and pace yourself, then that becomes a good time, a time when you listen to music or a tape, or just allow yourself the leisure of thinking about things that aren't so pressing. It becomes a plus and not a minus. It's all in the way you choose to feel about your travels and of course, your destination.

Yesterday evening I looked at residential recent information on residential properties within our MLS. This includes more counties than the five I generally follow, but shows what the trend is. (And the 5 counties are the main contributors in all categories.)

There are 106 new listings that came onto the MLS between June 1 and 14. At the same time there were 18 that have sold. Of the 18 that sold, 10 of them were under 150 and two were over 300,000, with the highest sales price in the low 400,000s. Obviously the remaining 6 were above $150,000 and below $300,000. This is pretty standard for what has been going on with the greatest activity being at the lower price point.

There were a goodly number of properties that came on listed at over $500,000 and also there were a number at over $1,000,000. These higher priced properties are being scrutinized more closely, so being the best property on the block in terms of location, curb appeal, construction/finishes, layout, etc. means more today than ever.

As I'm sure you know, continuing education is a part of keeping up a license and real estate is no different. Within the realm of classes one is required to take, Fair Housing is one of them. John Cancellari (sp?) comes to us probably each year and gives us his perspective (Our licenses renew every two years, so you only need to go to the class once in two years). Given that this is a class that even he admits, does not change a lot from year to year, he keeps it interesting and keeps your attention--and if you are sitting for three hours that is a good thing.

There were a couple of items that he brought up that were more interesting than normal. First, that in the last five years or so the greatest number of complaints  filed related to Fair Housing are in the category of disabilities. This hadn't been the case earlier, the focus had been race, but that has changed. A number of factors have been shifting to bring this change about, but not least among them is that disabled people are more aware of their rights, and also there are probably more parties that qualify. We are not talking solely about physically disabled, obviously there are other categories.

Next, in Virginia the number of real estate agent licenses has really dropped even just since February. Don't hold me to these exact numbers but what I recall is that there were about 44,000 agents in February and by May that was down to 35,000. He said it looked like the part-timers were getting out of the business. Well that is an interesting observation because the type of Realtor that we have on the Northern Neck is often a part-timer and they may be the people most able to ride out this market. Looking around yesterday at the room filled with about 40 people, what I saw was the majority of people were in their 60s, 70s and even 80s. As a matter of fact the teacher asked for the person with the longest activity in real estate and that was Mac, an associate broker with River & Rural. He has been at this for 44 years. And he is something. The person who had been at real estate the least number of years, had been in for three months. When asked why he had done this, well he said that since things were so bad they just had to get better and he was going to be ready. Not a bad idea. 

As with everything in real estate what it boils down to is that if you treat people fairly in every transaction, if you follow the Golden Rule and do unto others....then you are not going to fail in your duties. It really is that simple. Yes there are a handful of ins and outs, but mostly it is clear. Be fair and recognize your responsibility to your client and to all parties....then the rest will fall into place.

Regardless of what the calendar tells us, this is summertime with a capital "S." Everywhere you look there are suggestions of being deep into summer with all of the burgeoning tomato and squash plants, on to the wheat that is so ready to be harvested.

It makes you wonder what happened to our springtime, which naturally is always too short, but this year perhaps lasted for about 18 hours. Yes, I know, it got hot, it got cold, it got hot again. But at this point the hot is what you remember, especially last weekend with its 90 degree plus days keeping at least this party, in the office or on the road, and not outside.

The wheat that started delicately with little slivers coming out of the ground matured to greens and then blue-greens and now, without any notice at all they are well, wheat colored and golden and ready for harvest. What happened and why so quickly? I love those great vast swaths of blue/green everywhere. That's gone and shortly the wheat will be harvested and the soybeans will be planted and before we know it the fields will be the brilliant golden yellows letting us all know that it is early fall and the next crop is about to be pulled from the fields.

Things just keep on changing around here. I got notice last week that the Roadhouse Cafe was closing. I was called because my sister's artwork was up there, and a few of my photos as well. The gentleman, Tony who was the manager, wanted to make sure I got all of my artwork out before there were perhaps any issues. In thinking about it there really are a lot of restaurants in the Warsaw area and with The Daily doing rather well, there just must have been a bit too much competition. Also, the location of the Roadhouse wasn't that central, and truly the name was a bit peculiar for this part of the world.

Thinking about the restaurant scene, you have The Daily and the Northern Neck Gourmet. Then there are two Chinese restaurants...the Mexican didn't make it, although they continue in Tappahannock in a much lighter/brighter space and serve reasonable Mexican...especiallly for this part of the world. There is Anna's and Roma's over there near Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hardees and then McDonalds. That's quite a number of ...shall we say....eating establishments....for such a small part of the world.  Obviously where the franchises are placed is to grab the through traffic crowd.

The Refuge Manager is moving on to another location and someone new will be coming in to replace him. Joe McCauley put the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge on the map and so he truly has accomplished something important. How this will continue into the future and what expansion there will be to make the public more welcome, or at least more aware, well time will tell.

Last weekend there was the annual kid's fishing tournament at the Refuge...down at Wilna pond. Since I couldn't make it to take photos I asked my husband to help me out and he did. Looks like they had a good crowd and it was cool enough...at least until around noon, that the weather didn't chase people away.

And I went to a get-together associated with work on the Historic Sites Guide that is coming together well. Covering 6 counties and with  more than 400 photos and descriptions of locations of interest on the Northern Neck and Essex and King George counties, I find it really quite something. The get-together was up Route 17 down a back road and at a home on the Rappahannock. I love going to new places and finding myself traveling down a long gravel road that looks like it leads to nowhere and it brings me out in a place that puts another dot on the map in the world that I've explored here.

There seems to be more interest in real estate than there has been and so the reason I couldn't take photos was that I had a showing and then later I had a showing. No way to fit the photography session in between.

If people are curious about the Refuge, they have a website and I'll get that address for you. We, in the Friends group, have been developing one but somehow, the mostly volunteer young man who had been helping us, seems to appear and disappear and then when we believe it is complete, he disappears again. Not the best way to get things done and it has been over a year. It is time to move forward and everyone knows it. I just don't know how we are going to finalize this.

In my funny world I gauge what is going on economically on a handful of factors. First, how busy is the campground. Second, how significant is the change in traffice on the weekend and third, how difficult is it to get through Food Lion while shopping. Obviously Memorial Day weekend was very busy here. Last weekend, not so much...although the traffic was significant. The weather was also rather warm and so that could have kept campers away. I don't know. When I step out of the house and the noise I hear is the hum of air conditioners in the campers, I realize the majority of them aren't in tents...they are in climate controlled luxury. I'll report in on the weekend local busy-ness factors by Monday. Will also be looking at numbers soon, just to play with some ideas....want to see what percentage of land listings have been on continuously since before the 1st of January in 2009. I think there is a lot of inventory that falls into that category.....hmmmm.

Here is a better chart for residential than the one earlier this week, and land is included below as well. My conclusion is that we really don't need to know month-to-month what has happened from the beginning of the year. Knowing the cumulative number of solds and the actives at a given time and comparing them with the month preceeding puts our numbers in good perspective.

That said, here are the two charts of numbers for June 1st that cover the 4 counties of the Northern Neck and Essex county.

RESIDENTIAL

Price $	Units sold 1/1-5/1	Units sold  1/1-6/1	Units on the market 5/1	Units on the market 6/1
0-150,000	36	52	118	121
151,000-250,000	12	18	240	240
251,000-500,000	18	22	332	357
501,000-750,000	14	17	171	177
751,000+	2	2	114	130

LAND

Price $	Units sold 1/1-5/1	Units sold 1/1-6/1	Units on the market 5/1	Units on the market 6/1
0-150,000	28	39	800	841
151,000-250,000	2	4	139	166
251,000-500,000	5	8	183	197
501,000-750,000	0	1	28	29
751,000	0	0	20	21

In looking at this there's plenty of inventory, so this is a very good time to buy. Yes, I know, she wants to sell something, but think about it....there are a lot of properties where prices have come down considerably in the last year or two and people (not everyone) are negotiating.

We all would have liked to have taken our money out of the stock market sometime in 2007 and put it into some safe, high earning Money Market or the like. At the same time we would have sold our houses and not purchased until right now and we'd be sitting pretty. Wouldn't that be great?

Given that that isn't the course that anyone I know followed, then within the context of a rather complicated world, we try to reduce our risk and move on with our lives. That is what I'd like to encourage. There are no promises, so why not if you are in a reasonable position to do so, move forward with finding that perfect place on the Northern Neck?

Every time I turn around I am reminded why this is a special place. Increasingly there are groups that want to work with one another and improve in communicating events and sharing opportunities. And there are many many diverse groups and interests that one can participate in. This isn't the Northern Neck of 20  years ago when I first came down...the Northern Neck where I read the phone book just to be assured there was something out there.

In speaking with a friend from Maryland who has been trying to extricate himself from his holdings there and move down here, I was reminded of how well off we are in terms of taxes. To be able to own a nice waterfront home and pay no more than $2,000 or $3,000 in taxes is a dream for most people. Friends I have in upstate New York pay an exhorbitant amount for something that is nice, but certainly not in the calibre of what we have here.

We have suffered with the overall country in terms of unemployment and closings of business, yet I find that people here are generally upbeat and kind.  So if you can get used to traveling more for the things that you need (or planning really really well), you'll find the side roads soothing in their beauty and changing crops...and to get out on the water, or to simply look out at it makes the day a little more special, consider joining us in a place like no other.

This isn't the chart that I normally do at the beginning of the month. I will do that later today or tomorrow. Just a couple of numbers to give you an idea of residential sales in the last month and the inventory.

Four counties of the Northern Neck and Essex County. These are numbers of solds from the beginning of the year through the 1st of May and 1st of June. Obviously too, here is the inventory, the numbers of homes currently available.

Price point $	# sold through    May 1	# sold through           June 1	# on the           market
0-150,000	36	52	121
151,000-250,000	12	18	240
251,000-500,000	18	22	357
501,000-750,000	14	17	177
751,000+	2	2	130

This is what riverfront living seems to be all about. Beautiful weather. Family gatherings. Cookouts, music and last evening, two little girls with their father by the edge of the campground by the wheatfield trying to catch a few of the many fireflies. Just wonderful.

As I walked down the road here this morning and found many clusters of cars in driveways, it is clear that family and friends are visiting to launch the summer season. Walking around the area and seeing my dogs leap up and down in the wheat as if launched from pogo sticks is a delight. They are searching for rabbits and often as not the rabbit runs right across my path and they only follow by scent a few minutes later.

It is a morning where the downstairs of the house has been closed up all night and I open it and let the cool air rush in and it is so refreshing.

Yesterday involved two showings of houses and a bit of deliver signs to put on waterfront property (at the pier for water traffic) and checking signs at houses that aren't occupied. Upon my return I stopped near Garners Produce to take some pictures of their parking lot--what a slew of cars!  It seemed clear that their event had been a success.

Later in the evening when I went by to get some almost pencil thin asparagus as well as some of the remaining strawberries, I asked Dayna about the day, and she said that Sam Johnson (the former and perhaps part-time extension agent from Westmoreland) said that their numbers as seen in the book at Garners had never reflected more people at an event. This didn't include people who parked in a different location and never knew about the sign-in book. It was great to learn this. First, obviously, I think Garners Produce is a special place and the owners and workers efforts make the business unusal. It makes me pleased for them. But equally important is that when people come here to the Northern Neck they have interesting things to do--that they can take their children or grandchildren and do things they would never get to do in the city or suburbs. Not only that, fun and education in a rural setting can be free.

Questions come up about restaurants and obviously the Northern Neck is a little bit restaurant-challenged. Hobbs Hole over in Tappahannock was asked about and I called around and got fine reviews. It has a very nice environment and the restaurant is part of the golf complex....so you could go for lunch and play golf afterwards, or vice versa.

It always it's important to do some checking on any restaurant before you go since some places change hands and you can't really know. Last week I went to the recently reopened Tavern in Heathsville for lunch and found that very good. They are working out their schedule and at the moment  have not started Sunday brunch but will soon. What a very nice atmosphere and great food and excellent service. Not a bad combination.

Out of curiousity I spoke with a woman stocking the produce shelves at Food Lion to see how people had been and if they'd experienced their regular crush. The answer was that Friday was quite overwhelming and Saturday had been very busy but manageable. That seemed good. I also asked about how people behaved and she said she hadn't experienced grouchy, pushy, annoyed people, that people had been great. So perhaps we are all feeling a little bit thankful about what we have, whether it is a gorgeous weekend with friends, or our health or our ability to be free in this beautiful country. I don't know but kindness does tend to rub off and we all could use some.

Today the churches related to the Kinsale Foundation newsletter I wrote about a bit earlier will be handing out photocopies of this special Memorial Day newsletter. It really gives me pause to think about the many many people there are in that tiny community who have been a part of our military and served to make our lives better. As I probably said before, I will never experience Memorial Day the same way...I have connections to that small community and never realized how considerable their contributions had been. Also, if you multiply this hundreds and thousands of times over, you see how communities have contributed to our freedom and safety and it is humbling.

Next week, when the month is over, I'll post the numbers for May and we'll see where we stand in an organized way. I know I put up numbers just a few days ago, but that was because I thought...hmm...this is called statistics, it can't be that I ramble about local happenings and issues without some numbers. So that will be coming and I look forward to it.

Wishing you well for the remainder of this beautiful and significant weekend.

Here we are, poised for Memorial Day weekend and you can feel the  undercurrents everywhere. Some of the campers who were here last weekend negotiated leaving their campers and boats behind so that they'd be all set for this weekend. And some other campers were in last evening to start their weekend particularly early.

Traffic is picking up considerably. There was even boat traffic on the river last night. And shopping is becoming what it always becomes, much more hectic because our population gets a lot bigger even if it is only for a long weekend. What I would wish is that people who come here for short durations realize that they put a lot of pressure on services and to please be patient. I look at the people at Food Lion and know they are doing the best they can. Think about us "been heres" who are used to mostly zipping in and zipping out of places who wait in long lines...we don't exactly love it, either.

When I first came here I thought I was completely anonymous, that no one noticed me. Well it couldn't be further from the truth. And the impatience and expectations of fast performance should perhaps be toned down with patience and understanding.

Other things....last evening we (my husband and I) shared a dozen steamed crabs. They were pretty good, especially for this time of the year, but boy they are pricey and for those buying half bushels or full bushels this weekend there may be real sticker shock...I think a  half bushel was around $85.

Down on the farm (9-2) comes to the Warsaw area this Saturday with 4 locations 1. Garner's Produce (right near the Nomini Grove Grainery on Rt. 3 between Warsaw and Montross), 2. Sabine Hall (in the heart of Warsaw, down Sabine Hall Road), 3. Belle Mount Vineyards (near Warsaw) and 4. Tidewater Dairy Farm (Suggetts Point Road). There are all sorts of opportunities to learn and also for kids to learn and enjoy. The tour starts at Sabine Hall, but I'm sure you can get information at any of the locations. You can get more information than what I'm providing below at www.tidewaterrcd.org or www.nnnswcd.or, or www.northernneck.org.

Forestry techniques, a portable sawmill will be demonstrated, a tour to learn about wildlife habitats...there will be a plant clinic and hay wagon rides all at Sabine Hall.

At the Dairy Farm, children will be able to pet baby calves, there will be a video tape of milking operations and there will be farm tours. This is one of two dairy farms remaining on the Northern Neck.

At Garners there will be tours to show the 40 different crops grown on the 100 acres. Small animals for petting will be there with 4 H volunteers. The NN Beekeepers will do demonstrations...hay wagon rides will be available and the 4H kids will sell homemade strawberry shortcake.

At Belle Mount you can tour the vineyards and the Fredericksburg Spinners and Weavers Guild will be their to demonstrate the skills. At the end of the day there will be a complimentary wine tasting. These take place form 11 to 5.

Also, there's the Strawberry Festival in Heathsville on Saturday which tends to draw some rather good vendors and in terms of the Northern Neck is one of the better events to go to. It's a nice little town and across the street is Great Stuff a fun antiquey, thrifty kind of place that looks small but holds a lot of interesting items.

In Lively on Saturday and Sunday there will be the Epping Forest 7th Annual Antiques Fair with numerous out of the area, as well as local dealers present. So if you aren't going to spend the whole weekend on the water, this might just be a place to visit.

----------------------------------------Just a little bit of numbers for this moment in time. Wanting to put up some sort of statistics I looked at 2008, 2009 an 2010 numbers for the 5 counties from the first of January through the 25 of May.

For land total sales in those three years were $10.5, then 5.3 and then 4.9 (million)  in 2010. The number of sales were 93, 44 and 49. So there was a 50% drop in sales dollars from 2008 to 2010 and almost a 50% drop in numbers. The dollar value hasn't differed very much though, between 2009 and 2010.

For residential in the five counties, 2008 through 2010 sales were $44.9, 26.2 and 25.8 million.  The total number of listings were 133, 106 and 103. So the numbers of sales haven't changed as significantly as with land, but the percentages in terms of dollars are pretty similar. With a 21% drop in numbers of sales from 2008 to 2009, then what was the dollar decrease? It was 29%.

Looks as if we are still holding our own, but that sales are not increasing yet. And as we have said before the sales of land are really affected by the current business climate.

Enough seriousness for the moment. Wishing everyone a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend............and a moment to pause in thanks for this country that we so greatly enjoy because of the sacrifices of our fellow citizens.

The weekend brought a fair number of campers to the campground. And it was great to see families sharing and playing and just having a really good quiet time. Not that it was terribly quiet, but it simply was real fun that didn’t require a computer or people standing around using their cell phones….music, games, kids running around, a general hum of conversation. It was good to see.

 A couple of little kids made it into the water and didn’t seem to notice that the water is still just plain cold. They remind me of my crazy dogs who never seem to notice what temperature the water is except when it is too hot.

Next weekend I think we will experience the influx of a group of kids who have graduated from a college outside of Richmond. They tend to show right around Memorial Day weekend and they string a bunch of little tents all in a row across the back side of the campground. And they party! But if I were graduating from college and at a campground with a bunch of friends, I would do exactly the same thing.

The meeting last week, which was the second related to Tourism on the Northern Neck, continued developing a direction and a plan for the future. My hope is that there will be some real implementation. Clearly there are vast amounts of activities available to anyone coming to the Northern Neck, but it remains a challenge to make that clear. The ability to have information in one location as a clearinghouse for the four counties (or four counties and adjoining counties) hasn’t been managed yet. Obviously that isn’t the real goal of this activity in that there are a whole host of things that could be brought together and offered, or could be developed in order to make the Northern Neck a destination for leisure activities.

On another topic, I've worked on the Kinsale Museum's newsletter for ten years or so and the most recent one was just completed. It took me by surprise because our discussion, Wanda's and mine (Wanda Woodburn is the editor) was how to make it interesting since it consisted predominantly of lists (plenty of photos, but mostly lists of names). By the time I'd finished up a draft which was 95% complete I was totally stunned. 

This is a compilation of the veterans who have served our country from WWI to present from Kinsale. The names listed in the newsletter were submitted through the four churches. What was amazing to me was how many people have contributed to my freedom, even just from a tiny little town here on the Northern Neck. It made me really pause and think about the true meaning of Memorial Day in a way I never quite had before. These are our neighbors. These are people all around us every day and unless you knew them when they were active duty people, you would never know. This said to me COMMUNITY in a very big way and that is why being small can be so special.

Since we are close to the end of the month, I wanted to check the numbers in a cursory fashion. I found that in the last 21 days there have 185 new properties come on the market and 33 that have sold. (This is for our full MLS that includes other counties than the five that I follow. At the end of the month I will post the 5 county summary as I've been doing each month and it will not necessarily look exactly like this trend.)

Of the 33 that have sold, 6 of them were priced at an excess of $400,000 and 5 sold in the $400,000 plus price point. But the results were all over the place. A beautiful piece of land that has been for sale for almost two years and has more than 100 acres, sold for full price and the per acre price was slightly below $4,000 an acre (The price was never adjusted through the listing time). Based on its location and the attributes, that probably was a great deal, it just took a long time to get it sold.

A number of waterfront houses sold and they were mostly funded with conventional fiancing, so that is a good sign. These were in the $500,000 and $600,000 category.

This snapshot of information did show me that we are all over the place. Properties that are selling at full price after being on the market for almost two years. Properties that are selling at 20% below the asking price two years later. Properties that are barely on the market for 2 months and are getting very close to the asking price. Very different behavior of sellers and very different outcomes.

The majority of the 33 sold at under $150,000. I didn't count them, but based on the 6 that I've told you about above and then there was one other very nice piece of waterfront land that ended up selling for about $250,000 (I think it was 39 acres with a nice water view and a pier already in place), then probably 9 were price $250,000 and above and 22 or 23 were below $150,000.

What I didn't state in the first paragraph is that this review that I did on solds includes both land and residential. Ten days or so from now we'll see if May shows more trending upwards, at least in the residential sector. It may be too, that land is moving better as well.

Thursday I attended a brainstorming session related to how to bring tourism effectively to the Northern Neck. The jury's out on how well any of this can be implement and oddly enough for the same reasons we see that many things don't happen here...funds and personnel.

What was very interesting though, was to have the group put together a long list of asssets....things that are good and important and potential draws for the Norhern Neck and then put together a list of issues or problems or "threats" to the Northern Neck.

One side issue is that we are at least an hour from anywhere. Actually I've always felt that we are 45 minutes from everywhere--everywhere on the Northern Neck. Thinking about that one hour idea I realized that if we were 10 minutes from these other things then we would be in suburbia, totally built up and would have incredible taxes. We wouldn't be the Northern Neck.

Another focal area was taxes, how reasonable they are and how much of  a difference it makes. I know I said I was going to write about taxes, but not formally, not now--just anecdotally for the moment. Think about it. I know someone who has a small house in a waterfront community....3 bedroom and 2 bath (and its in fine condition)....and the taxes are just under $400. And that is for a year. The association fees are $200/year. I bet there aren't many places you can say that about. That includes a pool, tennis court and small marina. Is this 2010?

Then a large waterfront house...actually the one I've been writing about as a deal has great taxes, meaning low. It is 2560 square feet and has a little over an acre...a garage, a small outbuilding, a pier and 235 feet of waterfrontage...the oldest portion was built in 1995 and the taxes are right around $2,200. Different county, but when I compare this to property taxes in New York and Florida which are the two other states I am used to discussing, this is unbelievable. (Recently had a discussion about an inside 2 bedroom, 2 bath condominium of about 1200 square feet and the taxes are $4000/ year and there are monthly fees to be paid.

It has to be that where we are located, and that we aren't overly populated and don't have every shop right next door comes iwth its benefits.

The tourism direction could be a good one and we do have a lot to offer. It is just that no one seems to be able to coordinate it all. Agritourism makes a lot of sense since there is so much to offer in that area. Lots of history which at the moment is our foremost asset, lots of natural assets with parks, refuges, rivers and creeks to get out on...just not a lot of ways to get out there unless you own waterfront.

Issues related to what do the kids do, or the grandkids...not a lot of infrastructure that directly supports kids fun. But I think this will all be examined and considered and something will come of it. We'll have another day to meet next week at which time all the lists and charts and discussion will be culled down to something we are to focus on. We'll see. It all did impress me that all the different places and occasions to do things accumulate to be a huge set of opportunities to do things on the Northern Neck, but you don't think of it that way. There needs to be a clearinghouse of information and not ten different references, with all of them incomplete. We'll see if it can happend. It could really help keep the kids around provided they were educated to support the new infrastructure and could be paid a reasonable wage.

As an aside, what a great day on the river today has been. With the windows thrown open I've heard kids laughing and jumping into the river, numerous boats running up and down the Rappahannock and surprisingly, Grateful Dead music. I said to my husband, Grateful Dead...it sounds like them....and then the lyrics were theirs as I got out onto the porch and listened more closely. So it must have truly been the Dead...and it's been a long time.

The campground has a pretty sizable population for pre Memorial Day, with plenty of nice boats. Funny thing about the campground...when I got up this morning and was having a cup of coffee there was a hum. And you know what that hum was, it was the air conditioning systems for the campers. A far cry from years ago. And these days they set up their satellite dishes outside the camper. Hmmm. What is camping these days? Still they come and it is a special group that comes year after year.

Yesterday was unbelievable. It was one more in an almost-series of days or nights of wind. I've been here for close to twenty years and have never experienced a May like this. And yes, yesterday was most unusual. It blew hard, and for hours...just like it has for a number of nights over the last week. And there were considerable white caps and it was really unpleasant.

For those who had come to the campground, and there were a fair number, Friday had promised a great weekend with weather so crystalline and a temperature so perfect you would have thought it was the first week in September (when all great weather factors seem to converge).

Truly, though, yesterday didn't allow anyone near the river since it was totally unmanageable. Some of the campers seem to have waited it out and yesterday evening all quieted down and the only negative (perhaps) is that the temperature has dropped so much. Hopefully, though, they will have a great day on the river today since they've gone to the trouble of coming.

February tends to be the time when it blows like this. I've seen creeks literally emptied by wind. Granted, February is the time where the creeks are lower and its easier for them to be emptied, but I associate the windiness with cold temperatures and always being indoors. It isn't as if it is 80 degrees and you could be doing something outdoors, except it is so windy as to not be enjoyable.

We've gotten a couple of new listings in the last week and one is a rancher very close to Warsaw and another is a large custom built ranch over in Levelgreen, a small subdivision in the Kinsale area. Both of them are good listings, with the ranch listed at $174,900 and the 3700 square foot home in Levelgreen at $365,000. They will be added to the featured listings button.

I've also updated photos for a number of listings, one of which is the one I've called Westmoreland Waterfront Deal. The way to see the new photos is to look at Featured listings and see the listing that way. I haven't updated the button photos since you have to downsize them and upload them somewhere else. Sometimes the technology gets to be too much. Too much opportunity, but too many pieces to work separately.

Sometimes I wonder, related to this listing, if people think it is too good to be true. The answer is, it isn't. It is a deal. When I look at it and think about it, I realize, 1.18 acres with 235 of waterfront...hmmm conservatively that is $150,000. Then the house which is almost 2600 square feet and is basically two houses (part built in 1995 and part built in 2001) joined together and sharing a kitchen/dining/living area...at $100 per square foot, then that is already $410,000 and the asking price is $372,999 ($100,000 below assessed value). The house has decks, and a back up heating system, and other extras associated with it. Add to those numbers a garage, an outbuilding with gas fireplace and plenty of windows for a view to the river, a pier with water and electric and where can you go with this? Even if you discount it for the fact that it needs some cosmetic work and that it is back off the paved road for quite a ways (the gravel road is in good shape) you still find that the full asking price is a deal. There is no doubt in my mind that shortly someone new will come and see this and it will be gone.

(I check what is going on market-wise by going to the MLS almost every day. This morning after posting this message initially, I took a look at our MLS and that brought me back to add this paragraph. Interestingly, I found a waterfront home that just sold in Westmoreland County. It is 1700 to 1800 square feet...has about an acre of land...is a brick rancher which is older than the home I've been discussing, has a nice pier and a bigger view. It sold for $475,000. That's a nice comparable.)

Then there are the two houses in Glebe Harbor both of which are special in their own way. When I went to the one on Eagle Drive the first see itimet, I told the owners that it is a gem. I told them that in the 15 years of doing real estate I'd never had the opportunity to use that term and finally I have. An architect-designed home on its own peninsula of land with wonderful features and upgrades. It was unreal. Because I need to anticipate the problems of a house and want to help my buyers get the best, unfortunately I go into every house with my critical set of eyes. Yes, I can enjoy a house, but I am looking for whatever flaw there might be that would perhaps limit my potential purchasers' enjoyment...and also for condition issues that would come up in the inspection. So to walk into a house that is a gem (and yes it is new) but it is so well thought-out, well it's unusual.

The other house is older and at a more inexpensive price-point, and the reason for that is that it needs updating. A large lot (which is actually two lots), bulkheaded, a real nice pier and just moments to the Potomac. With a two car garage and down a nice cul-de-sac, the $399,000 is a good price.

I've been thinking a lot about the fact that one of the greatest aspects about living here is the tax rate....and that it makes a huge difference in the cost of living here. In the next couple of days I'll go into the various county rates and perhaps that would be helpful to readers.

Happy Mother's Day....hope the weather is glorious for us all.

As always this relates to the 5 counties....Northern Neck and Essex county. Residential sales.

Some months ago I wrote on a number of occasions about sales of the $1,000,000 plus properties. Since the 2008 meltdown there have been different takes on how the financial "constriction" is affecting different segments of the buying public. We've been hearing of properties that are selling at ridiculous, or perhaps appropriate discounts. Turns out that could be happening here with our high-end properties, if things were selling.

In 2009 there was one property that sold that was listed at more than 1 million dollars. That one sold for a mid 900,000s. Then this year there has been one that sold for over $1,000,000 and that was for $1.3. But what an amazing property and obviously there was real reason for it to sell. 5 acres on the Chesapeake with a beautiful house of 6,000 square feet. A totally unheard of price just a couple of  years ago. But that's true of lots of properties.

The inventory that we have right now is for 49 properties listed at $1,000,000 or above so it looks like there are a lot of parties that would like to get their high end properties sold, but not much is happening.

With prices having to drop in order to make things happen I looked at the $800,000 to $999,999 properties to see what happened with them. In 2009 there were 8 properties that sold. Of the properties sold most of them sold at 10% less than their asking price. (I didn't check to see what the original price had been and how far down the price had come. This observance came simply from the asking price current to the closing.) There was one property where the selling price was almost 20% less than asking and then one or two at 5%.

2010 sales in that segment have been a grand total of one sale. With 56 properties on the market there is a lot that needs to be moved.

Looking at some of the history on these shows me that there isn't much of a dialogue (perhaps) or that people don't really need to sell. If prices haven't changed in a couple of years and still reflect the highs of 2006 and even into 2007, it isn't serving a seller very well. I like to give my clients a fair sense of what their odds are. If there are dozens of properties competing with theirs I tell them, if you really want to sell then you need to make it clear to a buyer that there would be no other property to buy than yours in a specific price and category. It is simple.

In the years of the great rising tide, one could price a property to keep a seller happy and hopefully within reason and if you waited a couple of months the market would rise to meet it. So many people were engrossed in what the house sold for down the street and there was as much speculation going on in real estate as in the stock market. No more. Buyers have great opportunities now, and sellers need to know just where they stand. (With 800 land parcels for sale at below $150,000 on the Northern Neck, shouldn't a property owner know that they must price it very well or just not expect much if anything.)

It is my hope that this is very good spring and summer for buyers and sellers as there is much in the market and certainly some of it has been well discounted. 

This morning marked another first for spring. There was the Captain Thomas (the tour boat across the river)  left Tappahannock and cruised on by on its way up the Rappahannock River toward the Ingleside Winery. That really means we're settling into the new season. Along with that are the great bursts of flowering plants which are extraordinary because a special set of circumstances of cold and snow must have worked perfectly for their needs. The roses are unbelievable as are the rhodadendron and peonies. That's one of the nicest things about living here...how lush the spring can be.

Just last week I was looking at the fields where nothing seems to have  happened and wondering if they planted anything recently. Then almost as if in answer to that question, little bits of corn showed up and then with the still fairly-wet ground and the heat over the weekend they grew 6 inches in a couple of days.

The weekend brought many people to the river and there were a few boats and a few jetskis roaming around. It was good to see that people were out having fun, even if I sometimes get a bit tired of all the jetski noise. (If someone can explain to me why they can't seem to leave their home base....and don't really go and explore parts of the river, but just circle around and around...I'd really like to understand.)

There's a historic sites guide being worked on by a number of very capable volunteers and a certain desktop publisher I know. It will be a real boon to this area since it updates the information which was last reviewed and compiled about 70 years ago. There will be more than 400 homes or sites noted (most of them photographed) within the 6 counties, King George, Westmoreland, Northumberland, Lancaster, Richmond and Essex will all be covered. The volunteers have done a great job and it will help many people, myself included, to stop and take stock of the incredible history that is down every little road (practically) and we just don't even see most of it. So there is much more to the Northern Neck than the beautiful waterfront and the expanses of ruralness. There truly is.

Here we are, another month gone by and a new set of numbers to look at. Unlike the new numbers for residential, the land numbers don't show much change.  And as you would expect given the inventory and the lending situation, the lowest price point was where there was any action.

These are the numbers for land in the 5 counties and the number of parcels that are, or were, on MLS for any given month during 2010. There is also the comparison of numbers sold on the first of April and on the first of May, just to show the most recent month's sales. Unbelievable inventory.

Price	#on mrkt 1/3	#on mrkt 2/3	#on mrkt 3/3	#on mrkt 4/1	# on mrkt 5/1	# sold 1/1-4/1	# sold 1/1-5/1
0-150,000	674	739	755	776	800	19	28
151,000-250,000	120	126	129	134	139	2	2
251,000-500,000	164	167	161	181	183	4	5
501,000-750,000	21	25	24	28	28	0	0
751,000+	28	26	23	21	20	0	0

When I got up this morning I thought, well I'll do the research and then get to this late in the day, or maybe tomorrow. And I won't post the land information until late this evening or tomorrow because I don't really think it tells us anything new.

When I took a look at the residential numbers, though, it looks worthy of paying attention to. The inventory numbers mostly continue to rise, with only the under $150,000 decreasing slightly, but still there has been a real improvement in sales in the past month. So here they are, residential sales in the 5 counties (4 in the Northern Neck and Essex).

Price pt.	# on mrkt Jan.3	# on mrkt Feb. 3	# on mrkt Mar.3	# on mrk Apr 1	# on mrkt May 1	Sold # through  4/1	Sold # through 5/1
0-150,000	116	118	116	120	118	24	36
151,000-250,000	178	182	197	221	240	9	12
251,000-500,000	242	263	279	305	332	9	18
501,000-750,000	107	124	139	149	171	9	14
751,000 plus	93	94	101	101	114	2	2

Nice to know that the market is improving and even with tax season and crazy weather.

The last week was really something with the conclusion of all the plans for Historic Garden Week ending with the tour. The Northern Neck's event was on the only day of the week that it rained. That certainly didn't help things. Yet, probably about 1200 people went to the majority of the houses and the homes were something special. What is a surprise, at least to me, is the beautiful flower arrangements that are done in relationship to the colors, furniture or the paintings within a given room, etc. And although I've heard negative things from people who think it is too expensive, well given the number of volunteers who put in so much to get this to work out, as well as the fact that the money goes to support historic gardens, perhaps it isn't so terribly expensive. In all probability you've visited some site and thought, wow, the government pays for this, or some private foundation. Well it might be so for the building, but the grounds may not be covered by the funds. So the Garden Club of Virginia subsidizes some of these major places.

Among the ones here on the Northen Neck are Stratford Hall and Historic Christ Church in Lancaster--they have been funded by the Garden Club. Places like Monticello and a number of significant historic sites in Fredericksburg have also been funded. In the end I think it is important to note that people enjoy looking at these homes during Historic Garden Week and the money goes for very good purposes.

Looking around I see that the winter wheat has done what it does almost every year--one minute there is no indication of it and the next it is 6 or 8 inches tall and you can see it moving into the mode where it can be harvested.

The campground had its first visitors. Mr. Jenkins who carefully, methodically, predictably cuts probably 6 or so acres of campground weekly from the middle of March,  had his first visitors. And although there wasn't a lot of activity on the river, there were a handful of smaller motor boats running up and down and so there are some that are comfortable with doing that...with the costs...because truly, what gorgeous days and what a beautiful place to be.

The guys at the crab place are putting out their traps for crabs. I have to believe that this is for soft crabs, but I'll have to ask. I love how they look, these standing traps that have parts of them exposed when it is low tide. The herons seem to love them too and alight on them and watch for activity. I have no idea if they are able to get into them and steal something, or if they take advantage of whatever bait there is so that what is coming near the trap is easier to find. That I'll check on too.

Every morning now I am awakened by very noisy birds. They seem to be really pleased that spring is here. The osprey are all over the place and the eagles are stealing from them as best they can...since they aren't always the most agressive hunters.

I went to visit my friends at Garner's Produce, right near Nomini Grove Grainery. They still have a huge abundance of asparagus, and their strawberries are beginning to be harvested. The majority of the strawberries are coming from someplace south, but it won't be long before there won't be any need for imports. Saw some very nice mixed lettuces and gorgeous spinach (though be careful using it for a salad....I got complaints that it was tough....this from my husband and in a way I can agree. I should have cooked it, but what I loved was that it was so vital, alive and full of taste). They have all sorts of nursery plants...some annuals, some perennials and trees and bushes. All of them are raised here on the Northern Neck and that is one of their goals.

Hopefully my concerns for The Daily will never come to be. It has been very successful and what is nice is that since it is cafeteria style (sort of) if you go at an off time you can get a cup of coffee and sit down with friends (or clients) and have a meeting. Seems we all gravitate toward the light from the front window. It is pleasant and I can tell you, very much needed. It has never seemed very classy to meet with clients at McDonalds when we were trying to expedite something and a meeting in the middle of Warsaw was the easiest. He has a real good lunch crowd and I know he does breakfast, I just haven't gotten there yet. My hope is that this just keeps rolling and growing. We needed this...and maybe it was perfect to put it at that crazy corner. There are the people in the county buildings, and some attorneys' offices and the bank and the museum...there are all sorts of people who can simply walk to lunch.

That's my rambling for this morning. Anecdotally I'm hearing that phone calls are picking up and there are no phone calls. I'm getting a little more action, but it is still quieter than I would expect given what prices are on some of these properties.

Looking forward to a really good and interesting week.

Listening to all the upbeat news about the economy turning around I wanted to see if that would translate into the amount of property sold in 2010 vs. 2009. Looking at what I've come up with and you'll see here, if this good news in the economy (and I realize there certainly isn't all good news, there just is some good news) is making a difference, it will take a while to show up in our numbers.

I reviewed these numbers while figuring out how many rows and columns should be in this chart. I found that somewhere along the way I stopped collecting total dollars for each month. That I will do later today when I don't have an appointment. Also, much as it is nice to Average Price, I think Median would be helpful since just one property either very high or very low, can totally skew things. Nonetheless, here is some information I hope is helpful. First, residential for the 5 counties (4 counties of the Northern Neck and Essex) and then land. April runs through last evening, so for both 2009 and 2010 it is April 1 through 23.

Jan '09	Jan '10	Feb '09	Feb '10	Mar '09	Mar '10	Apr '09	Apr '10
14 sold	15 sold	9 sold	15 sold	29 sold	29 sold	14 sold	17 sold
307 DOM	155 DOM	207 DOM	283 DOM	187 DOM	210 DOM	207 DOM	218 DOM
$250,000	222,360	224,817	187,860	247,390	326,358	234,496	289,671

Here are the Median Days on Market and Median prices as well as overall dollars that were spent during a given time period. Total dollars are rounded up.

Jan '09	Jan ' 10	Feb '09	Feb '10	Mar '09	Mar '10	Apr '09	Apr '10
171 Med. DOM	123 Med. DOM	116 Med. DOM	226 Med. DOM	149 Med. DOM	169 Med. DOM	163 Med. DOM	169 Med. DOM
159,500	175,000	139,820	136,000	183,000	239,900	152,975	180,000
$3.5 mil	$3.4 mil	$2.1 mil	$2.9 mil	$7.2 mil	$9.5 mil	$3.3 mil	$5.0 mil

*DOM is Days on Market.   So with this additional information(added Sunday morning) it seems that the Mean price of a sold house is rising and also that the dollars sold is increasing. We'll see how that continues over the summer. If you look at the 2009 vs. 2010 numbers then there were $16.1 vs. $20.8 million sold in those two periods. Looks like an improvement.

Now for Land numbers.

Jan '09	Jan '10	Feb '09	Feb '10	Mar '09	Mar '10	Apr '09	Apr '10
7 sold	9 sold	9 sold	7 sold	11 sold	9 sold	3 sold	7 sold
365 DOM	349 DOM	255 DOM	343 DOM	219 DOM	184 DOM	224 DOM	199 DOM
$89,286	68,205	84,689	86,036	165,673	115,467	131,833	87,279

Here are the Median Price and Median Days on Market as well as total dollars for each of the given months or periods.

Jan '09	Jan '10	Feb '09	Feb '10	Mar '09	Mar '10	Apr '09	Apr '10
228 med DOM	285 med DOM	166 med DOM	323 med DOM	182 med DOM	211 med DOM	240 med DOM	149 med DOM
80,000	40,100	36,000	40,000	129,500	55,000	160,000	70,000
625,000	613,845	762,200	602,255	1,822,405	1,039,200	395,500	610,950

As with all that I look at, it will be interesting to see what changes over the next couple of months. It would be nice to say that the Days on Market are going down and staying below 200 on average. We can see though, that Days on Market dropped in 2009 as we got into the "season." So it may or may not tell us something about the direction of this market "in recovery."

And I do think that coming back in with the median prices for all of these properties will be particularly helpful in telling us more. That will be contributed by the end of the day or first thing in the morning. (I have returned Sunday morning to add the information for the Median Prices and Median Days on Market. What this tells us that selling land isn't easy these days, with little financing and with a glut of properties on the market. As with any property on the Northern Neck, pricing it properly is essential. Knowing where you stand and what the market is truly doing is critical. Perhaps this type of information would be really helpful to a motivated seller.)

What I think this tells us is that we just don't know. Numbers and trends are not jumping out and giving us a feel for a big turn around. They are simply saying, the Northern Neck has plenty of activity and a reasonable amount of sales (maybe) in a world where there are truly troubled places to live and need to sell a property.

Here we are at the countdown point. Tomorrow is the historic garden week tour here on the Northern Neck. Six homes are featured in Richmond County and it should be a rather crazy day around here.

There is so much that goes into this. I would never have dreamed that there could be so much behind-the-scenes organization. There will be bus tours and individuals who have come from out-of-state to stay with friends to see these homes. Sabine Hall, Mt. Airy, Menokin, Milden, Woodford and Indian Banks. Quite a selection, will be available to be seen. And tickets will be available at many of the locations as well as the information center on Main Street. (Check out www.vagardenweek.org for more particulars.)

We've all been concerned about the weather, especially about how the locations would hold up with all the parking. Imagine if it kept on raining for the last two weeks and you were going to have a tour bus park somewhere on your gravel driveway or out in a field. Absolutely impossible. Although there is a chance of rain, we've had dry conditions for a while now and there shouldn't be a problem.

By 5 p.m. tomorrow all this activity will evaporate and it will be interesting to see if the economy affects the turnout or if it is sufficiently reasonably priced that many people come. There are lots of tickets that have been purchased via the Internet, so we already know the tour will be well attended...it is just what will the final numbers be.

The Daily, newly opened and right in the heart of Warsaw, is doing very well. Yesterday I went to get a cup of coffee at about 2:30 and it was closed because it "ran out of food." Now what it is is that they gets supplies on Tuesday and it was just a great Friday and weekend, so he ran a little short late in the day on Monday. I think this is wonderful news...they are doing well, people are out and buying their coffees and their lunches. This is one more bit of evidence that we are moving in the right direction, even though it is a very slow set of steps.

The winter wheat has suddenly jumped up in fields that looked like they weren't planted. It's funny how one minute you are looking at nothing and the next minute you are seeing 6 inches of lush green foliage. And I'm going to run by and get some more asparagus at the farm stand later today. Pretty soon we will have strawberries and I must say that around here I get the best strawberries ever. If you were in a room and there was a quart of strawberries that you purchased locally placed somewhere in the room, you could find them blind-folded. What an intense and wonderful fragrance.

Off to a beautiful day and more to discover. Wishing you well. --Kathryn

These are just a handful of numbers that might give us all a bit of perspective. See what you think.

This if the five county area and solds since the beginning of the year until the 16th of April. Both residential and land.

	Res. # on the market	Residential # Sold	Land # on the market	Land # sold
non waterfront	367	31*	547	14
waterfront	455	25**	412	10
water view	39	4	30	1
water access	106	5	165	3

* of the 31 non waterfront sold there were 3 priced at above $200,000.

** of the waerftont that sold 11 of the 25 were over $500,000. The highest price paid was $1.3 million while the lowest price was $115,000.

For land, of the 10 waterfront properties sold, the highest price was $314,000.

Interesting. Maybe it helps your perspective on the market.

Yes, it was about as good as it gets. Warm, but not too warm. Cool, but not too cool. Beautiful sunshine and the promise of good times to come. Gardening going on everywhere. Windows and doors thrown open and the pollen count down considerably. Music filtering out to the street, and a sense of normal fun days to come. It was truly a timeless weekend.

Guys went out for their first turkey shoot (or hunt, meaning sitting still for long periods of time and listening and listening and listening). Unbelievably cold air just pouring down the creek early Saturday morning causing wonderful misty scenes. So cold that after half an hour I had to go home because my hands were freezing (I was taking photographs at 6 a.m.).

Anecdotally there is more activity related to real estate going on (and I find that is true too). Still some segments of the market need to be sorted out in terms price adjustments, but a number of segments are pretty much right where they need to be.

In talking to some people they still think the prices need to come down in a big way. In certain segments I just don't agree. Just because you can get a perfectly nice house for under $50,000 somewhere that has no jobs to support people and no plan to fix that economy...well this doesn't mean it should be like that here.

There is really no way of separating our economy from economies around us. Yes, Richmond is feeling the constriction in the economy, but it isn't shut down. The same can be said of Fredericksburg, Washington, DC, Williamsburg and other locales within reasonable driving distance. So if you compare us to Annapolis or Newport News or Virginia Beach for waterfront property we're still inexpensive. We also don't come with a lot of fancy places to shop, so there are trade offs. For the moment, even with discussion of bringing the tax rate up and increased taxes, the taxes on property here has been incredibly reasonable. I tell my parents (who have a home in upstate NY) and they practically laugh at me when we review real estate taxes.

Driving around and thinking about the richness of the area I think about the things you just don't really see when here. Where I lived when I first moved here was back behind Nomini Hall Farm. The Diary of Philip Fithian (which is available at Stratford Hall and I'm sure at most of the Museums) chronicles life just prior to the American Revolution. He was a schoolmaster hired by the Carter family to come from Massachusetts and tutor the children. Nomini Hall, at that time, was as considerable a mansion as Stratford Hall.

It took me a while to be able to feel the fact that at that time you could see the river from the then estate and that it was terraced out the back with beautiful gardens and also the kitchen garden. Eventually I could feel it. But it is like that everywhere. Once you really know the Northern Neck you feel the water wherever you are. It may not be just around the corner, but it is always closeby.

Years ago, when I lived there, Dr. Jordan would bring a class from Longwood College to the site and they would work off of the Diary and try to locate certain things. They have probably found the summer kitchen and I believe they located slave quarters at just an appropriate distance from the main house (that burned in the mid-1800s but there was a house built above part of the foundation which stands today). I wrote many of their visits up in the newspaper, the Westmoreland News, but that was more than ten years ago. Maybe I'll get copies one of these days.

And the poplars. The tulip poplars that still partially line the entrance to Nomini Hall were photographed and included in Nancy Ross Hugos book The Remarkable Trees of Virginia. (Published in 2008 and available at a very reasonable price on Amazon, anyone who loves the Northern Neck...or Virginia would find it an important addition to your book collection.) Ever since I met her and read through her book I haven't quite been the same when driving the Northern Neck because I can see new things. Sure there's be a huge amount of timbering over the years, and there are vast areas where there wouldn't be a remarkable tree, but from time to time you find that they are in the most unexpected places. You can think to yourself, what in the world have these trees experienced? What many many events have occurred just below their branches.

There is a richness here that is just under the surface. It is in the many many historical places and interesting diverse architecture. This is also an unbelievable place in terms of growing things. When I first moved here I likened it to the tropics (where I've never gardened) simply because if you plant at a certain time and the plant is suited to the area it just shoots out of the ground. It is wonderful for gardening.

Just like everything else though, there can be an embarassment of riches. Years ago I was told through a friend of a friend of a friend, of an old house that was going to be bulldozed by the farmer to make more room for his crops. It had been rented for years and so the little garden had been left intact. So with the house would go the garden and the daffodils were what were in greatest abundance and were there for the taking. Being a particularly avid gardener at the time and having plenty of room to put daffodils, I went by and got some and then returned. What was unbelievable was that they had probably been there undisturbed for 40 or 50 years. They had grown at different levels on top of each other. So each bucket full that was perhaps 16 inches by 16 inches by 24 inches had about 100 daffodils. After two rounds of 5 buckets I was exhausted. I will never try to dig up that kind of stash of plants again. It is too much.

Slightly similar to that is a bunch of hostas given to me last week. I was given a ball of them that is probably 30 inches across. Depending how I break them up I may well have a hundred plants. Since I don't have the time (or inclination) this will become 10 plants with a bunch of pieces all in one clump. It is glorious, but just too much. The country is funny that way. It has much to give, but  you have to take it when offered, otherwise it is gone in an instant.

Finally the wind has stopped. It has been roaring in off the river for days, and most notably at night when you felt it was going to come right through the windows. Even if we won't have much sun today, it is great that things have quieted down.

My friends near Nomini Grove Grainery have opened their farmstand. Garners Produce is on its way to being in full swing, with things happening and deliveries coming in. The main local produce they have now is asparagus and greens. In talking to Dayna she said they were picking asparagus twice a day. Turns out that when the temperature is 90 degrees for a series of days, you can practically see it grow. I picked some up last evening to steam and add some vinagrette to in order to have a touch of spring. It was just great.

The wild columbine that traditionally opens right around tax day and brings the hummingbirds, is out and ready for visitors. I'm going to try to keep track, but I'm betting I'll see (or hear) a hummingbird a couple of days before my normal date. Lilacs burst open and have felt rather beaten by the wind. Since I don't have that many I picked them all and brought them in. Even though it rained last night, I don't think they really would have revived and probably would have gotten dark spots on them with the rain.

Maybe the pollen will calm down for a bit now. Anyone who suffers from allergies from pollen has surely had a most miserable week. Everywhere you go all you see is cars and trucks coated in yellow.

So numbers. These are residential numbers from the first of January through to the first of April. Just like everything else I put up, it gives you a sense of the market. Doesn't probably tell you exactly what you want to know for your particular purchase or sale, but points you in a direction.

Just recently I used the information about how many homes were for sale in a given price category and the numbers that have been sold. Generally an appraiser would use those numbers and multiply that portion of the year and round it up to a year. For instance if there are 10 homes that have sold in a category and they sold through the first of April, then that's a quarter of a year. What you could project, though really only loosely, is that 4 X 10 would sell in the year and that would mean 40 total. If there are 150 homes in that category that suggests that there is almost 4 years of inventory available. As a seller it says you need to place yourself well in the market in order to sell.

Of course there are lots of factors you have to take into account--for instance your location, how old the property is, whether it needs updating, if it has any special amenities that most others don't, but generally there is a kernel of truth in that sort of projection.

Yes, numbers. Residential, 5 counties--Northern Neck and Essex. First of January through 1st of April of this year. Here's some information.

Price $	Avg. sales price $	Avg. selling price $	Avg. Days on market	Sales $ ttl
0-150,000	112,508	101,682	201	2,440,375
151,000-250,000	201,744	175,322	148	1,577,900
251,000-500,000	358,822	316,667	188	2,850,000
501,000-750,000	613,195	540,696	294	5,406,960
751,000 plus	997,826	975,825	234	2,927,479

And here's a photo of the Westmoreland Waterfront deal I've written about on and you can find on a button on this site. It truly is worth considering. 

$375,000 for 2500 square feet of house. 1.18 acres. 235 feet off waterfrontage. Pier with water and electric. Small very nice outbuilding. 1.5 car garage (yes, I don't know how you fit half a car into that other part of the garage).

The trend continues. More and more inventory and we aren't selling it down yet. The numbers associated with the residential market are far better than land. Obviously with conservative lending practices, and that is the understatement, it is hard to finance raw land at this point. Anyway, here are the numbers related to April 1 for comparison. (Again, the five counties...four in the Northern Neck and Essex county, too.)

Price	# on market Jan. 3	# on market  Feb. 3	# on market March 3	# on market April 1	# sold 1/1 to 3/1	# sold 1/1 to 4/1
0 to 150,000	674	739	755	776	14	19
151,000 to 250,000	120	126	129	134	0	2
251,000 to 500,000	164	167	161	181	2	4
501,000 to 750,000	21	25	24	28	0	0
751,000+	28	26	23	21	0	0

 Wanting to know what was the maximum anyone paid for land thus far this year I checked those four solds in the 251,000 to 500,000 category. What I found was that the highest price paid for a lot has been $314,000 in 2010. The next highest amount was $274,000. Certainly a far cry from just a few years ago.

If you are interested in selling land you really need to look at what your position is in this market and how your property fits in with solds in that portion of the market. Otherwise you are working within a context of so much inventory you'll have great difficulty being seen by a real buyer.

Just a reminder....I have a listing that is really a deal. I know,  you've heard it all before, and she's a salesperson, so what would you expect. But you know, if you've been following the posted numbers, that I'm pretty in touch with the market. So think about this. 2500 sq. ft. home on 1.18 acres of waterfront with 235 ft. waterfrontage, a pier with water and electric, an outbuilding with a sleep loft and windows overlooking the creek. 5 minutes from the Potomac. Attached 1.5 car garage...plenty of privacy and the asking price $375,000. The lot, even in this market, is worth in the vicinity of $200,000 and the house which is in good shape were to be valued at $100/square foot...then we've got it at $450,000 without adding the outbuilding and the pier....you get the idea. And maybe you have a friend who would be interested. You just never know. Thanks for considering it.

Today has a lot going on so this might not be completed until nightfall. Nonetheless I wanted to get started, at least with residential numbers.

So over the last couple of months there has been a chart showing how much inventory is in our MLS for the 5 counties at the beginning of each month (4 on the Northern Neck, and Essex too). That's what is listed here, and later the land numbers will be put up. (I've decided to just start using the 1st of the month numbers from hereon out.

Price pt.	#on market Jan. 3	# on the market Feb. 3	# on the market March. 3	# on the market April 1	Sold # 1/1 through 3/1	Sold # 1/1 through 4/1
0-150,000	116	118	116	120	14	24
151,000-250,000	178	182	197	221	5	9
251,000-500,000	242	263	279	305	6	9
501,000-750,000	107	124	139	149	4	9
751,000 plus	93	94	101	101	2	2

For those of you who have been following this for a while, I chose to remove two listings that I didn't think qualified for our SOLD statistics. If you wanted to factor them in then there would be one more sale in the $501,000 to $750,000 category and then one in the $751,000 plus. I'd rather be conservative.

What's kind of nice about these numbers is that they show for almost all categories that things are picking up. For instance 42% of the years sales in the up to $150,000 category occurred in March. For the $501,00 to $750,000 category 56% of the sales occurred in March. If this continues and each month has a reasonable increase this may well be a good season for real estate. And yes, there's lots of inventory so as a seller, take note and as a buyer, find that special property at a good price.

As I said, land will be up later...just deadlines (for instance the Real Estate Review is due today even though it won't be out on the streets...this one, until the end of April).

The moonlight awakened me this morning streaming in through the window. And looking out to the Rappahannock I could feel the promise of warm breezes and a summer full of warm nights and plenty of activity. The last week or so with the winds and the rains make today's weather that much  more fulfilling...the 70s or maybe 80s we have starting today, and all of spring ready to jump out and commit to the summer. It will be a good couple of warm days.

Over the last few days the weather has made it challenging again. We all thought we were through it when we had that bit of really nice weather a couple of weekends ago, but we were wrong. The last week brought wind and rain and a number of times we needed to go the back way to get out of here. There is a little bridge over Catpoint Creek where the crabhouse is, and if the tides are too high, then the water washes over the low point and cars can't get through and sometimes larger vehicles have problems. The aftermath of those events leaves behind stones, and driftwood and all sorts of grasses in a flowing pattern within the road. Time moves them back to the edges and then the event is history.

The Rappahannock River often has a brownish hue to it, and with all the wind and rain we've had it has looked almost chocolate. Let's hope that the extreme weather will disappear and it can return to normal.

Lots of things have been happening with The Daily finally opening in Warsaw. KG, the owner/manager/chef (I believe) had a grand opening on Monday and all of us who learned of it had a great opportunity to taste the offerings--for free! When I went there to meet a friend of mine for lunch it was mobbed. Since I often make recommendations to people about places to eat, I felt it was my moral obligation to go and learn about it.

The prices fall right into line with those in the area, although there are opportunities to get slightly less expensive fare. For instance a BLT is listed at $4.95....so, that is good. My understanding is that they will be open for breakfast and lunch, with opening time being somewhere in the 6:30 to 7 a.m. vicinity.

The sandwiches I tasted included an excellent roast beef and also a gouda with red peppers on it. The peppers had been sauted before and were nice and sweet. Obviously there is regular coffee and specialty coffees and there are great cookies. Oh, and the soup was so good that by the time I got there... a little bit late for lunch, it was all gone. Can't personally recommend it, but I think that recommendation works without me.

The Northern Neck News has an article on what is happening with the Essex Square Antiques Mall since it closes today and a smaller version of the antiques shop will be opening somewhere else in that mall strip. I don't have the particulars but the article should. Also, there should be an article about The Daily. Once I check and see that it is so and that they have been posted on the website, I'll come back and put the website address on here. The newspaper does put up a couple of features every week and the calendar and a handful of other items, so it is generally worth checking on if you are coming into the area. (Don't think there's an article on The Daily on the website, but yes, the Antiques Mall is up there, so just go to www.northernnecknews.com and check on it.)

Later today I'm going to take an hour and go to the Roadhouse Cafe and put up a "show" of artwork. That's the location that was formerly the Crowsnest Restaurant, right near the "Y" and the Buyrite. My rationale for this timing, is to have the work up during the month that includes Historic Garden Week so that it will get some regular and exceptional exposure. You see, that one day, April 21st which is the day for the Richmond county house tour, may bring in as many as 2,000 visitors and all of them will be seeking a place to eat at mid-day. The Roadhouse is the  to accommodate a crowd, and there will be flyers at the information desk --where visitors pick up tickets--providing visitors with a list of local eateries. (For more information about any of the tours, including the Northern Neck's, you can go to www.vagardenweek.org and look particulars up.)

The majority of the work will be my sister's and will include oil paintings, monotypes and collographs (www.bonniemurray.com). Although she is based in St. Louis, I send her a constant stream of photos of this area that are transformed into works of art in different media. A few of the pieces in the show will be my photos and I'm excited to put them up.

Photography is quite a passion of mine and I'm pleased to say that in the most recent House and Homes magazine which is available for free in many local locations, there are two articles that feature my photos. First, there is an excellent article on the Historic Garden Week tour on April 21 in Richmond County. Then beyond that the Outbuildings article also has many of the photos I've taken over the years. The story behind that opportunity presenting itself is a whole other story and I'm afraid I've already been saying quite a bit this morning.

So what else? Well the high water table has to be giving the farmers the worst of times. In my almost twenty years here, I've never seen so many locations, often front yards or farm fields, transformed into ponds complete with flocks of seagulls. There's no way that the fields can be worked with the equipment since it would get stuck in a minute. But it is a bad time for farmers to be kept from planting or fertilizing. We'll see how long this lasts and what the results are. I bet if I asked Kelly Liddington, our local extension agent, he would have some predictions and they'd be very on target. He is a most knowledgable guy with a great sense of humor. He tends to have an article in the newspaper and as long as you understand what his job is and what the focus needs to be, it is great.

Well today ends the month so that tomorrow I can put up new figures looking at what kind of inventory we have in which price categories and also some summaries. As you can tell, I am looking forward to it. I keep saying it and I do believe that this is going to be a good spring and summer season for real estate. The sunshine is leading us forward to better times.

--------------------------------It's 6:30 p.m. now and all the promise of a beautiful day has been realized ,and the doors and windows open out to the river, the quiet beauty just permeates everything.

Good morning,

Things have been a bit too busy these days for writing, with preparing a couple of new listings, and a couple of contracts that agents in the office have been negotiating and finalizing. These are all good signs.

As I've said, I'll put up a bunch of statistics once the month finishes out and I have all of March's numbers, but perhaps some of the below will add a little insight. What this information today says to me is that yes, we are in a relatively stable market here on the Northern Neck. That with many homes being priced well because of considerable inventory this should be a great spring and summer for the buyer looking for a bargain. It just takes knowing what the market has to offer and understanding where your purchase fits into the scheme of things. Price is important, but so too is the condition of the home. Other concerns such as do you need to be in a neighborhood with amenities either for kids or grandkids to fully enjoy a visit? Are you looking for minimal yard work? Do you need to be located on a certain river because of friends? Is it important that you can get easily either to Richmond or Fredericksburg or Washington DC? Lots of factors come into play.

The numbers that I have here are from the 5 counties (4 on the Northern Neck and Essex) and cover January 1st through March 27th. For the moment this information is exclusively residential. As the day goes by I hope to add land sales.

	2008	2009	2010
Avg. List Price	339,171	240,283	257,519
Avg. Sales Price	321,427	222,726	229,271
Total Sales Dollars	22,892,753	10,022,650	10,546,475
Avg. Days on Market	250	223	208

In 2008 there were 65 residences that sold in that period. For 2009 there were 45 and in 2010 there have been 46. With the prices being more reasonable the Days on Market have decreased. Even in 2008 days on market were slowing up because the market was starting to slow before the fall. That's it for the moment.

Well here's the land portion that I talked about earlier today. Sales,  January 1 through March 27 in the five counties.

	2008	2009	2010
# of properties	52	25	23
Avg. list	100,108	144,470	116,896
Avg. sales	87,444	125,468	95,448
Avg. DOM	222	272	296
Ttl $	$4,547,076	$3,136,705	$2,195,300

It makes perfect sense to me that at the moment I should be finalizing my figures for 2009's taxes, I find something I'd rather do. No one ever put off working on taxes, I'm sure. Well just for a few more minutes, please.

So I looked at some numbers related to our local real estate. I will revise the figures if the sales of January and February need updating. It will happen, though, once March's data is in and I'll have the whole quarter's information to compile. In the meantime here is just a tiny bit of information. Maybe around dinner time I will put together the same comparison for land. Probably, I will.

For the five counties (4 in the Northern Neck and Essex) here are residential numbers of sales of January 1 through March 21st of this year. Compared with sales are the actives in the particular price categories.

Price point of listing ($)	# sold	# active
0-150,000	19	115
151,000-250,000	8	211
251,0000-500,000	9	301
501,000-700,000	5	133
700,000 plus	2	117

I guess it's time to focus on taxes. Oh well.

And then a little later...here's the dinner time land sales update. Same parameters as above.

Price point of land listing ($)	# sold	# active
0-150,000	16	762
151,000-250,000	2	134
251,0000-500,000	4	173
501,000-700,000	0	24
700,000 plus	0	28

The under $150,000 numbers of actives is almost astounding. Granted there are a bunch of reasonably new  subdivisions (or perhaps conceived during the great land rush) that are in here. So if I were to look there are groups of 10, 20 or 30 or maybe even 50 lots that are part of the time before we knew that the bottom was going to drop out. Nonetheless, this is a lot of inventory.

Because of this large number I went back and looked at how it broke out. For the  under $50,000 group, there are 331 lots for sale. For the $51,000 to 99,000 there are 297 and for the 100,000 to 150,000 there are 134. It's pretty clear that to sell a lot at this point there has to be REAL VALUE in it and it needs to be very clear to the purchaser.

All the right signs are around. Grass is being cut. Gardens are being worked up, and mulch bags are at the edge of  driveways. Doors and windows are flung open and the river is poised for action. Fishermen line the sides of the road, trying to get those big catfish that are often right offshore. There must be a right time and a wrong time for catching fish, for there will be many fishermen and then none at other times. If I talked to my father, he would tell me. We used to fish in Cold Spring Harbor, off of Long Island sound. We'd catch flounder and sometimes we'd go into the water and get clams....mostly with our feet. It was a little odd and squishy, but in the end a big bowl full of steaming clams...and little necks with a nice bowl of melted butter..mmmm...as you can tell, it's been a while.

The snowbirds are back or coming back. Those who live here but go to North or South Carolina or Florida for the winter tend to make their way back by the 1st or middle March.

The summer people are coming to check their cottages and open them up. Water is being turned on. Heating/cooling systems are being checked on and you can just feel how quickly this all changes.

In moving from New York I have loved Virginia because it is so sunny and the winters are so short. This past winter didn't really feel representative because we had so much snow, and more snow and more snow. For a while it was fun, but it lasted too long. Now with the spring Virginia has some of the nicest weather you'd ever experience. But we all know that it changes too quickly and we are right in the middle of summer before we know it.

The trees that start slowly sending out their leaves will suddenly go POOF and it will be summer. No little leaves, no subtlety...purely and simply summer.

This should be a spring and summer of great relief. We are through the bad weather (I'm assuming this is true, since I've taken some of my best snow photographs around the 22nd of March) and although there are concerns on the economic front that will be with us for quite a while, things seem to be starting to stabilize. Within the real estate market here, property continues to sell. Those properties that come on at a reasonable and good price tend to move. While sellers that still hold out for 2006 numbers will do just that....keep holding out and holding on.

Lots of bargains are now available to take advantage of. If you look at some properties, well look at the lot value....for the most part a good waterfront lot is worth quite a bit of money. Those aren't going anywhere. There aren't that many...not prime lots. So find a good lot with a house on it and estimate the lot value...say $200,000 to $300,000 depending on where it is. Then put the house on it. Could you build the house for what they are asking for the property once you add in the lot? What is the price of the septic system, well, pier? What other improvements are there with the house? Would you get the same quality if you were to build today? Could you upgrade a home and still be in very good shape with its value? It's worth considering.

When I speculate about ever moving (which we won't) then I think about building or about what is available, and right now I see properties that I would have to seriously consider rather than building because I couldn't buy a lot and put the same quality home on it. Just thinking. Always thinking...about real estate and today, about spring!

P.S. so that I have put some new numbers up....in the last 21 days there have been 172 new listings put into our system, 110 price changes, 126 expireds and 24 sold. This is the time of year when inventory tends to build up and we're certainly getting our fair share. Should be interesting with lots of ongoing inventory. It's going to be a good year for real estate.

Sometimes I wonder what is most valuable to someone who comes upon this site and starts to read the postings. Is it most important to have the numbers related to real estate sales or actives? Is it helpful to have some general discussion of real estate along with some basic...what it's like to live around here sort of information? What is it that helps the most...and maybe it is a mix.

For a newcomer to this site, I wonder how you choose to look at what has been posted. Do you look at the titles and select those that reflect numbers? Do you jump in at the beginning of the year? Just what makes sense to someone. Obviously if there is a discussion such as the one most recently about the accuracy of statistics, knowing what has been put up for the day or two prior is essential.

If you have any input on this, please let me know and you can always email me at kam129@aol.com. I won't chase after you and I won't bother you. I'll just take into consideration what you say is most helpful.

On that note I was thinking about very local stuff. I live on the outskirts of Warsaw and so I am in and out of Warsaw almost daily. It is a funny little town that has had its share of losses recently with Radio Shack closing and then the nursery and also the Mexican restaurant which was a sister restaurant to the one in Tappahannock. These were truly losses. No one wants to go to Kilmarnock from here to find a Radio Shack. The nursery was a very nice one, although I found it a bit pricey. And much as I was glad to have the Mexican restaurant here (especially for take out) it was way too big and cavernous and as far as I was concerned, the atmosphere was depressing.

At the moment we are anticipating the opening of The Daily, a coffee shop in the center of town right near the light (and Northern Neck State Bank). Hopefully they will be able to get some more activity for Warsaw. Given the coming of spring, and I Love My Plants, that seasonal greenhouse that is close to the center of town and has just re-opened, and there is a new thrift shop right in that vicinity, perhaps they'll be a considerable flow of traffic to the coffee shop and places around. K.G. has taken on a challenge, though with the location of the coffee shop. That traffic light is busy, busy, busy. But behind the shop there is parking and most especially there is a lot just a few steps behind the building that relates to the courthouse and should have plenty of room. For those who work at the newspaper (which is in the same building as the coffee shop) and Coggin Furniture (which is also in the same building) the hope is that people use the farther parking lot.

The new thrift shop is called For Haven's Sake and it is associated with the Haven which is the local shelter for women. It just opened about a week ago and I haven't been by, but will soon. So right there...by the light the coffee shop is opening by the end of March, the thrift shop is within walking distance and so too is the greenhouse with plants and garden supplies all ready to get you going in the garden. Let's hope that this sets a tone for Warsaw that will start to turn things around during a challenging time.

Yesterday I went to the courthouse to look for closing information on a couple of listings and  I could not find it. After I couldn't find the records I asked for assistance and someone who works there and is very familiar with courthouse records could not find it either. It was suggested to me that out of the area closing companies sometimes are not most timely in getting their documents to be recorded. A rather scarey prospect, but not my problem.

Given that I don't know what to do with a couple of these numbers related to sold residences in the first two months of this year, my decision is to wait until the first of April to see if I get some feedback from the people I inquired about this to. If I don't and if there isn't newly recorded information then I'm going to remove these from the mix. What that will do is make the sold information more accurate, and given that it will include three months data instead of two, the difference the adjustment won't seem so significant. I really don't know what else to do, but think this approach is fair to all sides of the issue.

Beyond that, just another note of spring breaking through in the Northern Neck with the daffodils finally blooming in my yard. Now I won't find myself driving down the road thinking I should stop and grab a few that look like they need a home. That's good, since I haven't stepped over that line yet and now I don't need to.

The grass is greening up and the people at the local campground have been working picking up sticks. Yesterday the picnic tables went out.

Right down the street, the guy who fishes and crabs has been out with his nets for quite a while now and I see him doing his run every day. Don't know what he is bringing in, but sometimes I stop and talk to him. Then I might order a rockfish or some perch and he'll clean them and bring them by later in the day. It's nice. Local people collect at his crab place to purchase his catch before he takes it off to a wholesaler. Small country living kind of circumstance to have someone like that around, although you can't be exactly sure when to catch him on land.

Ever since I put up my most recent numbers that include how many properties had sold and at what price in January and February I have had a niggling feeling of discomfort. There are a couple of listings that sold this year in that time frame that don't make any sense to me...at least not how they are posted. As I understand from the "powers that be" these are being checked on and I will hear what the decision is related to them.

But in the meantime I'm going to go to the courthouse today to look up these sales. It may be that if they are not sales, but financing situations that they don't really qualify for the SOLDs data that I've put up. Don't want to suggest that there is a trend or something one could make decisions from if included is information that doesn't fit (and I know no one would rely exclusively on this information, but still it needs to be as accurate as possible). And I will change the numbers if I find out information that proves questionable as sold. If that is the case then the number of residences that sold in January and February will be reduced slightly and the average sales price will drop as well. It may be then that 2010 numbers will be lower than 2009. We'll see.

All this thought of what is accurate and a good reflection of the market and being ethical was brought home yesterday when I returned a phone call. I knew when I called back that it was a form of solicitation, but wanted to see what they had to say. It was the Better Business Bureau and boy was that woman sales person great at what she did. With a beautiful script she emphasized the importance of the Better Business Bureau and how one could be listed with them if "your information checks out." From there included were the benefits of being posted as an approved business, the ability to use the BBB logo on your website and any printed materials and being affirmed as an ethical, good business to do work with. It sounded (and still sounds) terrific. The emphasis was on how important it is to be trusted, especially at a time where business is so difficult. I agreed with all of it.

The kicker was the price and I told her that at this time I wasn't in the position to spend that sort of money even though I believed this was a good idea. Thereafter I got onto the Internet to look at how the BBB covers real estate firms and found that only 3 were referenced in the Richmond area. Well that isn't much competition. It looked like it would be great to be one of four. Or would it be? Having worked for 15 years and having many contacts I think that my own references are stronger than getting onto any Web site, and it doesn't take a chunk of change out of my pocket. Perhaps were I one of the bigger "engulf and devour" firms with many many agents this would make a difference. Word of mouth is the best business I've ever had. I tend to work with people who are comfortable with me before we begin. It has been a great way to do business and for now I think I'll just tuck that Better Business Bureau phone number and contact name into a file.  Something tells me that after this tough winter we're going to have a very busy spring!

There's always quite a bit going on in the Northern Neck even though by driving down the roads it seems like everything is quiet.

Coming up in April are at two interesting events you might want to consider. One of these is an ongoing event which has been part of the Northern Neck for years. The other event is a newly conceived one, and something which should prove to be a great addition to activities here.

First, The Garden Club of the Northern Neck as part of the Garden Club of Virginia will be presenting a tour in Richmond County. It will take place on April 21st and will include 6 homes: Mt. Airy, Sabine Hall, Menokin, Milden Hall, Woodford and Indian Banks. The first three are located near to Warsaw while the balance of the tour is in the Sharps area. Interestingly the proceeds from the tickets sold will go to benefit the restoration of historic gardens throughout the state of Virginia. So you will be able to see these historic homes and at the same time benefit a worthy cause. To get more information or order tickets, please go to www.vagardenweek.org.

The second event is a tour of Artist studios to benefit the Northumberland Pulbic Library. Here's the press release that tells about the tour.

Northumberland Public Library Sells First Artist's Studio Tour Ticket

Heathsville – The Northumberland Public Library sold the first Artist's
Studio Tour ticket to library board President M. Wonda Allain, kicking
off the library fund raiser to be held on Saturday, April 10, 2010.
Conceived as a different and enjoyable way to increase support for the
library, which relies on fundraising and donations for 40 percent of
its operating revenues, the tour will give the public a rare and
fascinating look into the studios of some of the Northern Neck's most
exciting artists. "We hope the Studio Tour will become an annual
tradition in the lower Northern Neck. We have so much talent here and
the library is proud to be the facilitator of this cultural event,"
said library Director Jayne McQuade.

This year's tour features 15 artists in 11 studios from Reedville to
Farnham to Mollusk, including Lorri Amidon (metal art jewelry), Sue
Broadway (jewelry), Diana Jamison (oil painting), Starke Jett
(photography), John Latell (ironworks), Penny Mace (fiber arts), Sid
Mace (wood turning), Nancy B. Max (stained glass), Andrew Pitts
(furniture), Kathy Pitts (quilting), Micki Pugh (needlework and
miniatures), Ron Pugh (pottery), Richard Stodart (painting), Charles
VanDenburgh (oil painting), and Sally Vinroot (fiber arts). As a
special bonus, the Tavern Weavers and Spinners will demonstrate at
Sally Vinroot's fiber arts studio, and members of the Tavern
Woodworkers Guild will demonstrate at Sid Mace's studio workshop.

Visitors will have the opportunity to see the studios, talk to the
artists, see demonstrations, and in some cases purchase original
artwork. To make it easy to find the studios, a map and brochure will
be provided when purchasing tour tickets. Also, the library website,
www.nplva.org has a link to a map showing all the studio locations.
Light refreshments and rest rooms will be provided at most studio
locations, and there will be door prizes of selected artwork, on
display at the library during the months of March and April. Tour
tickets are $15 (children 12 and under free) and are available at the
Northumberland Public Library, EVB Bank locations in Heathsville,
Kilmarnock, Callao and Burgess, or at any studio on the day of the
tour. All proceeds will go to library funding. For additional
information, call the library at (804) 580-5051, or visit the library
website at www.nplva.org. The library would like to thank corporate
sponsors Chesapeake Bank, Essex Bank, EVB Bank, and Ingram Bay
Contracting for their support.

###

An afternoon addition to this blog is the fact that the Essex Square Antiques Mall in Tappahannock is closing. We went there earlier today  to have a look around--it is therapeutic when you really want to go out of town to do some significant junking. The place is one of the little surprises you occasionally find here. I've liked it because there are lots of vendors and reasonable prices and it is well organized. 

I learned yesterday that the owner has just this past week informed vendors and staff alike that the mall will be closing on March 31st. There are some vendors who have put a half price signs out, and perhaps there will be others to follow suit once they consider what they have to do to pack up and get their wares out of there.

What a loss. A loss for the community. A loss for the people who sought the place out...just too bad for us all.

I realize that this isn't exactly real estate, but it does give you a sense of the types of activities that go on here, and that there seems to be a broadening of opportunities.

It happened overnight. Truly, it did. One minute the osprey nests were occasionally inhabited by a pair of eagles or the traveling blue heron, and now they are claimed by their real occupants and have a whole new set of activity. I don't know exactly when it happened, but that yesterday, the 10th, the sky was full of new activity. This morning these ospreys are combing the waterfront areas in search of sticks they need to rejuvenate nests that may have all but been wiped out by the severe weather of this past winter. What a welcome sign....it truly says spring to me. Of course April 15 tends to be the day that the hummingbirds first make a real presence here and that is an important date for me too.

As I look at the MLS data that comes on daily it seems that we are really adding the listings. By the beginning of April I think that there will be a fairly major increase of inventory. That truly would be expected in any year, but may be more problematic, or shall we say, more of a challenge for sellers to be successful. That's why realism about the market is so essential. One of my waterfront listers decided to come down from $409,000 to $399,000 in order that his house is well positioned. When the price gets to the point where someone interested in similar properties knows that it would be foolish to pass it by....well then the property is well situated. We're looking forward to results.

So some numbers. I thought I'd examine the January 1 through March 1 units information and a little more than that. So here it is:

Residential listings in the 5 counties (Northern Neck and Essex)

Year	# units sold	Avg list price	Avg. sales price	Total $ sold
2007	64	336,747	317,618	20 million +
2008	39	386,831	368,323	14 million +
2009	23	260,083	240,146	5 million +
2010	32	296,413	267,867	8 million +

Land listings in the 5 counties (Northern Neck and Essex)

Year	# units sold	Avg list price	Avg. sales price	Total $ sold
2007	35	178,319	152,047	5.3 million +
2008	32	106,131	90,925	2.9 million +
2009	16	111,000	86,700	1.3 million +
2010	16	96,394	76,006	1.2 million +

Regarding land, none of this should be a surprise. Obviously in 2007 and 2008 there was still plenty of speculation and people or businesses were getting inexpensive financing and there was still the thought that everything would appreciate. With extremely difficult financing for land at this point it is great that we are still moving along failry well, with the sales of January and February.

Residential sales are more encouraging with the number of sales and the average sales price actually increasing since January and February of last year. Have to keep in mind, though that January and February of 2009 were part of the fallout from the financial mess that threw us all into a tailspin.

Springtime is here, with ospreys, golf, gardening plans and interest in real estate picking up. Expectations are that this should be an active spring with lots of opportunities for purchasers (and sellers too if they make the choice to see the market for what it is).

This is a little bit early, but with discussions of gardens and golf starting to abound, it strongly suggests spring. The "winter wheat" in the field has started to show itself. Long bands of green are sprouting in places I didn't even know had been seeded. It's all coming and quickly. The maple trees that first show their flowers with an early burst of red tiny flowers, are moments away.

It also looks as if spring will bring with it a lot of good values. The listings that I've had for a while are always negotiable and the sellers are set to negotiate provided buyers are reasonable. It is always worth it to test the waters.

Then with two new waterfront listings it is clear that sellers are offering deals. One of the listings is a 2550 square foot home on a creek just off the Potomac...maybe a couple of minutes away. Lots of decks, a huge great room with living, dining and kitchen overlooking the water, a private master suite, attached garage, a little studio space of 380 square feet with great views. 235 feet of waterfrontage, 3 gas fireplaces. In good condition with some cosmetic work needed, but at $375,000 this would have been unheard of two years ago and is a deal...not because I say so, but because the competing properties and sales say so.

A second one, located in Glebe Harbor is on a quiet tucked away cul-de-sac. Cedar sided, 3 bedroom 2.5 bath, see-through fireplace, large glassed sunroom. Double lot with deck right overlooking the water, with views out to the Potomac. Pier with 10,000 lb boatlift. 2 car garage. The fee has been paid so that one could pay the annual fee of $280 to take advantage of association amenities including pool, tennis courts, etc. Other properties within the subdivision can not compete on price and value at $409,000. Not because I say so, but because the numbers do.

I thought long and hard before I added these listing onto my blog. Having written in excess of 50 notifications over less than a year, I thought, hmmm, it is only fair that some of the information specifically related to listings that we have are put out to the world. I realize that perhaps you aren't looking for a waterfront home in Westmoreland County, but given the number of people who do look at this blog, you really never know.

This is a request I've put on here before--please send me specific questions that I can assist with. If you'd like to email them to me directly, please do at kam129@aol.com. I'm always interested in a good problem to solve. My thanks.

As promised on or about the 3rd of each month I'm checking on how we are doing in terms of inventory. I've put together numbers dated the 3rd of January 2010 and then the 3rd of February and here we are at the 3rd of March. These numbers are sort of instructive, but I thought that they should be seen in relationship to the number of units sold within a category since the beginning of the year. For that reason there are two charts below; one for residences and one for land. That way this doesn't get too confusing to follow. Here are the numbers:

Residential properties, 4 counties and Essex county

Price	Jan. 3 # on market	Feb. 3 # on market	Mar. 3  # on market	# of sales                                     1/1-3/1/2010
1-150,000	116	118	116	14
151,000-250,000	178	182	197	5
251,000-500,000	242	263	279	6
501,000-750,000	107	124	139	4
751,000 plus	93	94	101	2

The two properties that sold in the above 751,000 category...one sold at $768,000 and the other at $1,300,000. The $1,300,000 was an extraordinary property.

Land, 4 counties and Essex county

Price	Jan. 3 # on market	Feb. 3 # on market	Mar. 3  # on market	# of sales                                     1/1-3/1/2010
1-150,000	674	739	755	14
151,000-250,000	120	126	129	0
251,000-500,000	164	167	161	2
501,000-750,000	21	25	24	0
751,000 plus	28	26	23	0

Within the land information, those properties under $150,000 had 1 that was over $100,000 ($117,000) while the majority, 9 of them were under $50,000.

Perspective. Things are happening. Properties are selling. Anyone interested in selling has to be aware of how much inventory there is and what that means to selling. For purchasers it shows that things are truly in their favor to negotiate unless the seller has put the price in the to-sell range. We'll see how the spring goes, but activity suggests that things will heat up just as soon as the weather does.

This topic came to mind about a week ago when driving around with a colleague of mine and checking on a piece of land I referred to earlier. I wanted to review where the outer lines of the two adjoining lots were so that someone we know could be hired to find the suveyor's pins down the center and define the two separate lots. (The exterior of the two lots is easy to define but the line between the two is not.) This so that we can consider the issues related to a road and drainfields. We want to know this all up front before moving forward with the listing.

While at the location we took down the phone number off a sign on an adjacent lot. The sign had been there a while and I had tried to look up the lot information previously using the website provided on the sign, but hadn't been successful.

In driving back to the office my colleague called the real estate firm number and inquired about the property. First, there was no name for the agent who represented the property. This posed a problem. Second, despite giving a county and a street address, the nice woman who was struggling asked to call us back. She did indeed call us back and with information that the listing had expired at least 6 months ago and with a price and acreage on the property that couldn't have been correct. About 5 years ago I'd sold the property and been very good friends with the owner. Not only had I sold it, but because his situation was difficult, I had borrowed surveying equipment from a friend and spent a lot of time on that property locating a couple of surveyor's pins. I really know that property. So the acreage quoted was double and the price quoted was about ten times what it was sold for. (Even though it had been sold in the interim, I would have expected a price of about double on it.) So the information we got wasn't likely. Not likely at all.

This from an out-of-the-area realtor. So what comes to mind is why one would choose an out-of-the-area relator? What advantages does that bring? If selling (or purchasing) real estate is one of the most important transaction of almost anyone's lifetime, why is it so seemingly inconsequential when selecting someone to work with? Who would have walked that lot with a prospective buyer? Who would have explained whether it had or hadn't a perk site and if it did, if there were limitations or issues? Who would have been representing anyone in this transaction. I find it difficult to understand. No one picks up the yellow pages and grabs any name for a lawyer or a doctor. Why is it that it doesn't matter who is the realtor working with you.

That is why even though my business isn't huge, I like it. I have people working with me that I totally trust. I have people who are referred to me that know me through other people and we can make the leap of trust very early and achieve more. They know who they are dealing with either with me or my agents. I'm not saying that I'm the best, but that through referrals the people I work with know I'll go the extra mile. Generally too, when clients I've sold property to decide to sell, they come back to me and there just isn't a question about the listing.

Sometimes I know why I don't get a listing and in the past year a couple of times it has occurred because the potential client knew I'd be totally realistic (these weren't people I had sold to but was helping to look for property and they needed to sell to buy. They wanted to low price on the purchase end, but wanted the high price of years ago on the selling end. And they priced that way and they didn't sell.) How can you help someone achieve an end if you don't tell the truth and position their property realistically in the market? In this market in certain segments what I've had to say is you have to price this in such a way that any buyer (and we know there aren't that many) would feel very foolish not to buy this particular house. We would have to do the homework and know exactly where we stand....otherwise it could be a year later with no result. Some people can't wait that extra year and there is no promise at the end of that time that the market will be better. Perhaps stable, but no promise of better.

I do think that referrals is the best way to decide. Not rock star agents, not biggest firms, not a whole lot of different ways. Find someone who knows someone who has worked well with a realtor. Or call a realtor and ask for two or three referrals to call and check with. Know who you are working with and what you will get from them.

Recently with a new listing, another agent wanted to show the house and my instructions are that I must be there. The out of the area purchasers said, wow, isn't that strange, does that happen often? I laughed and said to the realtor, it is pretty hard for a piece of paper to fully represent a complex residential situation. It makes a lot of sense for there truly to be a representative present. And that's the way I feel and I feel it strongly. Lock boxes serve a purpose, but they are for a limited set of situations. By and large given the commissions that realtors have been receiving, representing their sellers is an important component of listing a property. We are no longer on the rising tide of wait two months the market will catch up with us and we can sell it. It has to be positioned well and the features and benefits of a home must be clearly explained...hopefully in person.

Shortly...by the 4th, I will put up what has been going on in terms of whether inventory is increasing. I have the units from the 3rd of January and the 3rd of February. We'll see what the 3rd of March brings. Also, I think it is worthwhile to look at dollar sales of January/February for 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Another way of seeing where things are going in 2010. Until later this week!!

Good morning,

Again I find myself waiting for things to happen in the market--our market. Every day there is new speculation about things that will be happening, now it is commercial properties (although they've been talking about them generally for quite a while). Yes, we are in a whole new world in terms of challenges (at least in my lifetime), I can't decide if this is somewhat about keeping us scared. We're more linked together than ever before because of the banking system....I just don't know.

It seems that whenever we turn around there is something more to perplex us. There was H1N1 and that seemed overwhelming based on the media. For those it did affect I'm sure it was extremely significant, but the majority of us didn't have much of an issue. Most recently it has been the snow and much as it has been trouble, it hasn't been as terrible as one would think by looking at the TV.

Things aren't going to be perfect this spring, but I think 2010 will provide some really great opportunities to buyers and there may well be some pent up demand in our market. This, of course, for reasonably-priced properties.

Last evening I looked at sales from January 1st to February 19th to compare 2009 and 2010. What I found was that they were so similar as to tell me next to nothing except that there was a fair amount of activity in 2009 after the melt-down in the fall, and that that level of activity persists even in the cold quiet months of early 2010. Since they didn't tell me enough I went back and looked at the same period of 2008. So here are the 5 counties (NNeck and Essex) and their sales for basically a 6 week period early in the year.

Year	Res. sales #	Res. sales # over $400,00	Land sales #	Land sales #  over $200,00
2008	27	7	28	5
2009	20	4	13	0
2010	21	3	14	1

Within these numbers are a couple of other stories. For instance in 2008, of the 7 residential properties that sold at an excess of $400,000, three of those homes were above or right around $1,000,000. For 2008 and 2009 the highest prices were $600,000 and $625,000 respectively.

For land, there were 5 that sold at above $200,000 in 2008 and the one that sold in 2010 was a really great deal...something that would have sold for at least 50% more probably back in the days when prices were totally out of control.

When I step outside I can feel spring coming. The birds are talking in a whole new way. The snow is almost entirely melted and sunlight filters in far earlier in the morning. The issues related to lawn care and the challenges of moles and voles are starting to come up in conversation. The fisherman down the road from us, by the little bridge, is out on the water and bringing in his catch. Almost every day  people assemble to purchase from him before he takes his fish off to the wholesaler. It is feeling more mild and that spring will come, and once it does it will be much too short.

Yes, this doesn't directly relate to real estate purchasing and selling, but truly it gives perspective on what it is like to live here.

We are still more than stunned about losing Sally, the co-owner of Good Eats. Also, there are many unanswered questions yet to be clarified. The autopsy was completed last week, yet we know nothing about the result. You would think that even if there has to be more time given for the toxicology report some statement could be issued now.

 The service in celebration of her life is tomorrow, Thursday and the obituary ran in the Richmond Times Dispatch yesterday (the first notice of her that they have run). As an aside, I learned and hope I'm correct in stating this, the Times Dispatch in a cost saving measure no longer has its little satellite offices throughout Virginia. They are truly a Richmond town paper even though we in the hinterland get the newspaper daily. In years past we were very lucky to have Lawrence Latane who is local and would write about Northern Neck issues and events. He retired and was not replaced.

For the time-being I've been getting information from the Free Lance-Star on Sally Rumsey, yet they haven't put anything new up on the Web site since the 13th. At that time the article stated the death was ruled  a murder. So we just don't know more than that, have no proof that it is so, and have to let our concerns and questions fade a bit into the background until more information is available.

But community seems to be about being part of the fabric of the everyday world here. Last evening my husband invited me out to dinner. That doesn't happen very often since I love to cook and find that we get the greatest value staying at home. Nonetheless, it gets tiring to cook and clean up day after day, and so we went out.

None of this was fancy at all. About as basic as you can get, and that is fairly true about eating out here in the winter. There aren't fancy places unless you are willing to travel about 45 minutes or an hour, and then mostly they wouldn't qualify for fancy if you are from a city with lots of great options.

We drove our 30 minutes and arrived at Angelo's in Montross where I found that our waitress is a friend who is part owner and oversees the farmstand where I arrange bunches of flowers for farmers markets. Also she works with the florist who I used to work for when major holidays came up (when I was still living in Westmoreland county). Obviously when we had a moment or two we caught up on mutual friends and things that had been happening.

The place wasn't too busy, but in walked a surveyor who had worked on some real estate projects for me. Earlier this week I called him to discuss locating pins down a lot line for a possible listing of a large acreage property. We agreed that until the weather got a bit better that it was ridiculous to try this. I'm familiar with the property and have seen many pins down the line which are marked with electric blue ribbon, but because those markers were put in in the late 1980s it will be a bit of a challenge to locate them either with or without the ribbons.

So community. We went out and saw a couple of people we knew. We weren't right in our back yard at all, yet it felt connected. Driving home we joked about the traffic since we saw three cars in our 25 minutes spent on the back roads. But we've both lived a lot of life in other places and I can't say we've totally had our fill...he'd like to go back to Laguna Beach and visit and I'd go to Washington, DC or New York in a heartbeat. It is just that this is our community now and to go and visit these other places is great--the Northern Neck, though, is home.

Lately I have been driving around and thinking about how different it is to live here. Little things. Day-to-day moments that seem normal but are way outside the norm for city dwellers, occasionally jump out at me.

A couple of weeks ago, listening to the local radio (since they give good weather reports right around the hour) there was an ad from the local electrical co-op. What they recommended was that members not use excess electricty during certain hours in the afternoon because that would raise the rates for all members. Obviously the only way this would make a difference was if many of us followed their suggestions and waited until the evening or early morning to wash laundry or dishes. There was something nice in knowing that we were small enough and connected enough that this ad could run and perhaps keep our rates down.

And then there is the slightly peculiar, but eventually endearing practice of people waving to you as you drive in the area. This isn't a big wave with a full hand, but a little index finger off the steering wheel acknowledgement as you drive the back roads. It certainly doesn't come from everyone and occurs most often from men....but it is a recognition that in this world where you may or may not see someone in a car or truck for five or ten or fifteen minutes along a back road, that you are someone and someone that counts.

You don't really think about it and then you go away somewhere and it doesn't happen and you wonder, why not? Then you come home and are supported again by that funny little hello as you roll down the roads.

And there are some advertisers who are suggesting that we all buy local. When I first came here I would never have seriously considered that...why in the world pay a premium for something here. In these difficult times it is most important to buy locally. We want our services here to flourish, even if they may not be quite up to the level of the city ones that we can reach within an hour or so. Each and every business (the reasonable ones) is a little stability in a crazy world, they've made a commitment to our community. We need them.

The last couple of weeks some shocking events occurred here and these too show our connectedness. Tiffany Yachts in Burgess had a huge fire and had great losses. There are questions to be answered, there are losses to be managed, there are boats to be repaired or replaced, but almost everyone knows someone who is connected to the place. There aren't many companies like Tiffany Yachts on the Northern Neck. There aren't many boat builders working on that quality product and so they are special. But what you find is that special services, and things that stand out are recognized by all of us because we are so few (I think that the entire population of the Northern Neck is under 50,000 and I'll have to check....I did check and the 2008 U.S. Census estimates put the 4 counties at just under 51,000, so close..) and so special-ness stands out.

The most difficult and puzzling recent circumstance that has many of us extremely upset is the case of Sally Rumsey of Good Eats. Good Eats, a restaurant which has been reknowned here for years....located just outside of Kinsale, has experienced a huge loss. We, the community, feel it and will be reeling from it for a long time. Sally was missing last Friday, and I believe her body was found late Tuesday night. The medical examiner supposedly finished the autopsy on Wednesday and we all wait to hear what were the circumstances of her death.

What is surprising in a way, is that everyone I know is affected somehow by this. The friend of a friend, the neighbor, the supplier, the summer person who went there regularly who is a client....the daughter's best friend....it just goes on and on. And we all just wait to find out the outcome, the circumstances, the why and what happened in all this.

It tells us that we are important to one another. We aren't just a cog in a wheel...we lead a big life in a little world.

This brought me to look up the word provincial and the definition that I thought applied most to being in the middle of nowhere as I am and the one that seems to is "rustic, narrow, or illiberal; unsophisticated; parochial." I had to think whether or not being parochial was a bad thing or even if all these definitions would apply across the board, and the answer is, no. We are living in a world where things are big, institutions, stores, businesses....things are really big. Because of this we don't really feel as if we have  a voice or that we matter that much. Sure we rush around and are busy and buy things and enjoy things, but here on the Northern Neck it is just a bit different. There is an importance of being a member in this small community that can't easily be replaced in a larger one. So for the things we give up by being here....we gain in other ways.

(A little perspective on my attitudes...I lived in Manhattan for ten years and Washington DC for four and therefore have an idea of the trade-offs that come with rural living.)

Friday

This will be one of those winters that everyone refers to. So much snow and so much concern for the roads and activities and just staying safe. I have to say that although I find the quiet and tranquil type of days we experience with snow to be a pleasant break from the demanding days, I know it can be a real hardship on others. Also, if the storm does get bad and power is out, then it will be extremely challenging. But truly, we are just embarking on this storm right here in the Northern Neck, for now at 2:25 in the afternoon the snow is falling with a bit of vengence and the view to the bridge is completely obscured.

In early January I wrote about how I'd track what was going on in terms of inventory and so took January 3, 2010 as a benchmark. Earlier this week I took the same set of numbers from February 3, 2010 to add to our January numbers. That's what you'll find here.

Price	Residental # Jan	Residential # Feb	Land # Jan	Land #  Feb
$1-150,000	116	118	674	739
$151,000-250,000	178	182	120	126
$251,000-500,000	242	263	164	167
$501,000-750,000	107	124	21	25
$751,000 plus	93	94	28	26
$751,000 plus sold in 2009	14		2

The number of total residential listings on the market has gone from 620 to 781 and for land the listings went from 1007 to a total of 1083.

In the meantime there were a total of 15 residences sold in the 5 county area in January. 13 of them were under $500,000. The remaining two were in Lancaster county and both were purchased for cash. One was sold at a 10% discount on the list price and the other sold for a 20% discount.

For land there were 8 properties that sold in the same one month period. Of those 7 in the 1-150,000 category sold for under $100,000. Only one sold for $150,000 plus and that was for a great deal.... a waterfront 5+ acres with a home partially finished. It was quite something and certainly not a surprise in terms of selling.

Even with some sales in January the residential totals went up 161 units and land listings went up 76. Inventory, more inventory.....but it should come down once we start to have some reasonable days and there is a hope that the snow will be just something we look back on and shake our heads about. No matter what, it really is February.

Saturday morning footnote: the snow changed to rain around 7pm on Friday evening. It continued raining with a lot of wind until about 3 in the morning when everything quieted down. No more rain. No more wind. Now this morning at around 8:30 it is snowing again, but the use of that word, BLIZZARD for us on the Northern Neck seems like a bit of an overstatement. Nonetheless the weather station is suggesting we'll have an interesting afternoon.

There's nothing like a full-blown snow storm to interrupt outdoors activities and keep your attention on obligations. We really do have a snow storm going on right here and since there was no snow at 5:30 this morning, it's surprising how much accumluation we have right now. It is perhaps 6 inches outside of downtown Warsaw. And it's still coming down hard.

In regard to statistics, a few days ago a discussion of Average Sales Price and Average Days on Market was posted on this message board. It covered the years 2005 through 2009 and I promised to get information covering 2003 and 2004. This because it has been suggested that somewhere in that timeframe is a much more realistic representation of the market without all the anomalies of exterme leniency in lending and a real estate market rife with speculation. What we have below is the previous chart with 2003 and 2004 added to it. As always, this represents the 4 counties of the Northern Neck and Essex county.

Residential Sales

Year	WF Avg $	WF Avg DOM	WV/WA Avg $	WV/WA Avg DOM	Non W Avg $	Non W Avg DOM
2003	384,913	155	149,152	145	133,048	181
2004	410,259	148	188,555	146	147,773	151
2005	543,541	156	232,291	131	193,930	142
2006	661,713	183	245,526	177	203,681	157
2007	612,713	194	209,940	208	202,373	187
2008	609,600	237	206,218	225	177,458	198
2009	455,123	264	186,250	227	160,270	205

Land

Year	WF Avg $	WF Avg DOM	WV/WA Avg $	WV/WA Avg DOM	Non W Avg $	Non W Avg DOM
2003	144,094	269	27,218	265	38,143	226
2004	263,357	209	35,849	239	44,881	229
2005	220,036	228	34,144	160	67,600	202
2006	255,811	191	41,369	156	80,021	174
2007	294,034	249	42,091	200	100,103	187
2008	234,182	281	34,003	224	82,055	217
2009	212,208	324	32,805	261	84,576	236

Looking at these results at least the residential results suggest that we are at, or close to,the bottom of the market. Of course there are many things that skew this information and so nothing is absolute. In the waterfront residential market I believe there are a lot of hold-outs at the higher price points meaning above say, $600,000 who didn't really NEED to sell. But as time goes by if they want to sell and don't have a real intention of using the 2nd home, then it starts to make sense to sell. It is far easier for those who came here 20 years ago and built themselve a cottage that they've enjoyed for 20 years, to sell it for about twice what it cost them even in this slow and lower-priced market. So there has to be a lot going on behind the scenes...with some parties realizing that a 100% or 200% appreciation is awfully good given what the market is. And to rely on their neighbor's sale of 2006 to determine their price probably isn't a good strategy.

This information is pretty helpful although it doesn't give us perfect information by a long shot. Better to have these trends in front of us than no historical information, just anecdotes to rely on.

Funny how people think moving to the country will basically put them into slow motion. Whoever said that wherever you go, there you are, is absolutely correct. There's no way of getting away from it. So if you have any inclination to be busy and to find types of interests that would get you involved, it is somewhere here. It just requires a little bit of looking. But once you find that interest or interests, well watch out!!

Often I tell people who are looking at property and are a bit skeptical that they can come to the Northern Neck and survive purely on the beauty and the lack of traffic, with a bit of  golf and fishing thrown in, that they must be very careful. Essentially I say, don't let people know that you have knowledge, skills and time on your hands... for if you do you won't have any retirement time left. You will be caught up in a swell of different types of organizations and committees and you'll be looking for a bit of time off. Perhaps a surprise, but true.

I work with a number of organizations that are non-real estate and find that the retired people are very busy. That even though I am a working person with commitments related to my job, sometimes they get in touch with or get a commitment out of than practically any people I know. And they are thoroughly enjoying what they do. Just remember, there is a lot here to do, even in the winter months when all the outdoor activities are considerably curtailed. It seems even more special to me in the winter when we are a smaller population and everything is a bit less pressured....especially at the supermarket.

On a couple of other fronts....I did check about the Mt. Holly Steamboat Inn, the property I discussed a couple of months ago when they were trying to auction it on-site. Nothing happened at the auction, and as I understand nothing has happened subsequent to the auction so the property is still in limbo.

Regarding the statistics for 2003 and 2004, I've gotten the information and have to compile it to put it up here. That is something I will do over the weekend to make those charts more complete and hopefully more informative.

Another development here on the website is I've figured out how to put up photos on the site. It has been my intention for quite a while and hopefully I'll start to integrate them into these blogs, but for the time-being this site allows me 20 photos at a fairly small size, but they can be accessed by the "Northern Neck Photos" button which is right next to this message board one. Most of the time they'll be connected to my discussions. Sometimes they'll just be interesting or inspiring...I hope.

That's it for now, got lots to do.....since it's busy around here and not only that...it looks like snow!!

Good evening.. Below you will find the breakout of average sales price and days on market for residential and land sales from the 5 counties for the five years starting 2005. This information really is quite a bit more helpful than what went up on the message board yesterday. Lumping all residential together and all land really didn’t tell us very much, or at least nothing with which to make decisions.

Residential sales, 5 counties, Average price and Average Days on Market. Waterfront, Wateview/Water Access, Non Waterfront properties

Year	Avg WF $	Avg WF DOM	Avg WV/WA $	Avg WV/WA DOM	Avg Non-W $	Avg Non -W DOM
2005	543,541	156	232,291	131	193,930	142
2006	661,711	183	245,526	177	203,681	157
2007	612,713	194	209,940	208	202,373	187
2008	609,600	237	206,218	225	177,458	198
2009	455,123	264	186,250	227	160,270	205

Land sales, 5 counties, Average price and Average Days on Market. Waterfront, Wateview/Water Access, Non Waterfront properties

Year	Avg. WF $	Avg WF DOM	Avg WV/WA $	Avg WV/WA DOM	Avg Non-W $	Avg Non-W DOM
2005	220,036	228	34,144	160	67,600	202
2006	255,811	191	41,369	156	80,021	174
2007	294,034	249	42,091	200	100,103	187
2008	234,182	281	34,003	224	82,055	217
2009	212,208	324	32,805	261	84,576	236

In some cases the data is still rather deceptive since looking at the non-waterfront land it seems hard to believe that the average sales price ranges from a low of $67,600 to a high of $100,103-- that’s a lot of money. But after these numbers came up I went back and looked at particulars and there were a lot of properties that were 30 or 50 or 150 acres. Obviously non-waterfront includes a lot more than single lots costing $20,000 or $30,000.

Also looking at numbers of land properties sold  (which isn't listed here)--waterfront properties in 2005 had the highest number of sales while in 2009 one third that number of sales occurred.  Waterview/water access 2009 numbers are a sixth of the 2005 quantities. And finally for non-waterfront, 42% of the 2006 high number of sales were sold in 2009.

Although the numbers in the above charts are helpful, I believe that until we include the 2003 and 2004 numbers we don’t have the total picture. I believe that in 2003 the market was fairly in line with regular growth (relationship of average sales price and average salaries). Therefore we would like to see if 2009 fairly closely mirrors 2003 in sales prices. Given what we see looking at 2005 we are close.

I'm going to be able to pull together 2003 and 2004 numbers, I just need a little bit of time because there is a different process that needs to be followed. To be continued.

Everyone would like to time the market and no one truly can. Yet perhaps there are indicators that would help us better make our decisions. Knowing approximately where we are time-wise on the curve for the Northern Neck would help local buyers, sellers and realtors alike. We know that without more jobs and better job stability there is still a large wild card out there that affects us, even if sometimes it seems not to directly. Yet some of the really bad markets which we hear about in the media are not reflected here. Things were out of control, yes, but not on such a large scale. Also, we didn't have any nearby metropolis with high paying jobs to spur extra building. It was more the second home market that was escalating quickly.

So where can we look in order to better assess where the market stands today? One way to look at it is to go back to a time when prices were rising based on relatively "normal" factors which obviously exclude the huge appreciation of properties based predominantly on available monies that were often speculative. What is that date? And how do we determine it? I set out to look at what the average price was and the average days on the market was (in our five county area) for residential properties. The readily available data takes us back five years and is shown below.

Year	Average sales price $	Average Days on Market
2005	319,000	145
2006	360,307	169
2007	350,680	193
2008	350,860*	216
2009	263,027	228

*I'm aware that these two numbers look awfully similar and will re-run this later today to make sure there wasn't an error. Regardless, though, this does show a trend. Days on Market, certainly and average sales price, well 2009 was a huge hit. We wouldn't expect anything different, though.

Probably to get a better sense of the trend this needs to be broken out further to be really useful. Later today I'll try to put up numbers associated with waterfront, water view and access together, and non-waterfront properties with all the same parameters.

Tomorrow I'll put up land and I've figured out a way to add 2003 and 2004, it will just take a bit of time. That will better position us to know approximately where we are in the market today. Every little bit helps.

Okay, it's after dinner and the figures are ready, so tomorrow is now. Land sales in the 5 counties. 2005 through 2009.

Year	Average sales price $	Average days on market
2005	110,810	198
2006	124,451	174
2007	142,661	208
2008	121,261	239
2009	120,983	270

Tomorrow will be the breakdown of residential into the 3 categories listed above. That should be a little more helpful.

There is only so much one can do with the SOLDs information and although I'm sure there are other things to look at, I haven't found exactly what to do yet.

That said, here's another way to look at the market that has nothing to do with SOLDs. Of course knowing what sold last year affects how you look at the inventory here. That is available in a previous message which I will check on and refer to when I finalize this later today.

Here are the number of  residential units on the market at the moment broken out by county and also the determination of what percentage of the overall market each county's inventory reflects. (In other words, I've taken the total numbers for Essex and made that a percentage of the 768 total units. That is listed across the bottom row of the table.) Later today I'll put up the same for land.

County	Essex	Lancaster	Northumberland	Richmond	Westmoreland	5-county TTL
TTL #	66	233	256	49	164	768
$200,000 and under	26	42	57	24	66	216
% of TTL	8.5	30.3	33.3	6.3	21.3

Here are the numbers related to land actives.

County	Essex	Lancaster	Northumberland	Richmond	Westmoreland	5-county TTL
TTL#	65	422	356	62	148	1053
$150,000 and under	47	287	215	48	113	710
% of TTL	6.2	40.0	33.8	5.9	14.0

In terms of sold, in the five counties there were 339 residences sold in 2009, while 142 pieces of land sold. That is one way to look at the current actives of 768 and 1053 respectively.

Today has been quite something. This morning the river sounded like a waterfall as the ice started to break up and be pushed up river. The bright light and the bit of warmth, even for a brief time is totally invigorating. The birds seem to like it too. Even though I know there are great blue herons around at this time of year, I rarely see them often. Today one heron decided to ride one of the ice floes and cruised right past here. Throughout the day others have gone by, mostly collections of eagles, many of them young ones without their adult feathers...just that motley bunch of greys and browns. And now the river is moving on along in the opposite direction and there is hardly a sound. That sound of breaking up ice has dissipated because there isn't that much....and what is left is close to the shore and not really moving. The light on the remaining ice is absolutely brilliant.

Regarding real estate--I was talking to a friend recently about their possibly subdividing a piece of property. It was interesting what we got into trying to make decisions about it. The property itself may be divided into three pieces as far as the subdivision is concerned. My last understanding, though and based on some VDOT requirement, it can only be divided into two pieces. It has been perked, but there is only one perk site. This is a fairly large property, 15 acres, and since it is on a little creek, the perk site is about as far away from the water as can be. Often that is where the better soils are.

For our strategy we determined that I'll first revisit the subdivision/type of road requirement issue with the county before we do anything else. Obviously it makes a big difference if the property can be divided in two or three pieces. Then it would make the most sense to go ahead and get another perk site settled upon, either by putting in an application with the county or hiring an independent soil scientist. Since it is probably that the two (or three) drainfields would all be in one location, they would have to be survey-located so that they could be identified at a later date, when someone was putting in a home. Also, access to them would have to be in the deed in the form of an easement.

Another consideration comes into play whether or not to timber part of it. One reason to do so would be to cut a road fully into it. And there are some trees that really should be thinned. This gets one thinking about what you can and can't do and whether it is worth it at this time. I would suspect that there are about 4 acres that could be taken from this piece of property. The people would really prefer not to have this clear cut. It is just too ugly and even if it is most efficient and would provide the maximum dollars (if any) from harvesting the trees, it isn't a goal here.

So now I have to find a friend of a friend who can advise me on this project. I know that relatively speaking not much timber. I also know that many people have asked if there is anyone who does selective timbering....and generally I haven't come across anyone here. Maybe that is an idea to put out to some of the tree people who don't have enough work...they should bill themselves as selective cut people who would be willing to work small properties. You just don't know.

What I have understood is that because there isn't that much building, there isn't so much demand for timber. Just as hearsay, I heard of a 60 acre piece of property where they cut it and got $1,000/acre. If you saw the piece of property before and after you'd know that $1,000/acre, even if that is what the market can bear, hardly touches the full loss of those trees. Then again 60 acres is a place to start when you have to move big equipment....4 acres may not even be worth moving the equipment in. I don't know--yet.

At homesteading class the other evening we talked about a bunch of topics we might be reviewing at our monthly class. And Kelly handed out a sheet about a class being given in Gloucester related to timbering, small scale....and it's supposed to be very well done and truly informative. I'm  thinking of going. It never hurts to have more perspective on something and there sure are plenty of properties that get timbered here. I'd like to know what goes into that type of work and the economics of it all.

(To be a little more clear about the class, here are the particulars: Title-Sustainable Timber Harvesting & Marketing--A workshop designed for landowners interested in sustainably harvesting & marketing their timber. February 6, 2010, Gloucester, Virginia, 8:30-5:00, Registration at 8 a.m.. Cost is $40 for the day. Call Helen Heck at 804/443-1118 to register.)

Well today was a welcome relief after too much cold weather. I guess, though, I can't start really planning my garden since we aren't quite at the halfway point to January. It doesn't hurt to dream though and seed catalogs help.

Looking quickly at what has happened since the first of the year, we see that there has been a lot going on even if it doesn't mean that many sales. For both residential and land for the 5 county areas there were 3 sales, so a total of 6 properties in the last 11 days really.

For residential, two of them were priced above $400,000 and the higher of the two properties was on the market a year and some before closing. But it sold and they were able to finance it. So it appraised.

 For land, two of them were priced around $150,000 where one sold at full price and one sold at less then $100,000....since they look like they are located perhaps next to each other, I suspect there was a negotiation in buying the two lots together. The final lot was listed at $25,000.

There are currently 760 actives in residential in the 5 counties with 230 expireds since the first of the year.

For land there are 1041 actives and 221 expired. Lots of inventory.

In terms of life, I went to the open house at the Refuge (outside of Warsaw...off of Sandy Point Road) on Sunday afternoon. The house there, Wilna, had served as their headquarters for years was sorely in need of updating. When you dropped by there, you felt as if the Refuge staff was camping out. For the last few months, perhaps 4, the staff has been in an office in Warsaw and they are now  moving back to Wilna and will be fully-operational by the end of January.

The open  house was quite a bit of fun. What was unexpected, at least on my part, was the fact that there was so much history to the home that was revealed. People turned out who had known the property in its many other lives. One woman came who had been born there. Others knew of it when they would visit family and picnic on holidays and that was over 40 years ago. The final interesting story related to a shooting that occurred there and so up came the rug that was in the room so that the floor could be examined to see if the remnants of the bullet hole remained. Having sort of overheard the discussion, this wasn't just one of those kind of rumors that you can dismiss out of hand. There was real reason to believe it was possible.

I took a handful of photos and wrote a brief article for the newspaper. This is just another side to how interesting the life in the country can be. The house was beautifully renovated. They hired experts in historic renovation. And it will probably serve as a destination in and of itself, even without the Refuge being housed there. I know that it will be included in the Historic Sites book that is being worked on that will cover the 4 counties of the Northern Neck and Essex and King George as well.

This evening I'll attend Kelly Liddington's Homesteading class in downtown Warsaw. Kelly is the extension agent for Richmond county. He is an invaluable resource and also a great, fun personality. The group has been ongoing for at least two years now and we will move on into our third season.

It isn't that I ever expect to be homesteading, but the topics are interesting. We select those areas that we would like to explore and since the members of the group range from a farmer who is in his 70s and knows the Northern Neck like the back of his hand, to an engineer from perhaps Northern Virginia or Pennsylvania....and others that are either local or from a distance....there is always a new idea or ideas and perspective. It's never dull in the country....really.

Good morning,

Here are the dollars and other information associated with land sales in the           5-county area over the last 5 years.

Year	Ttl $ sold	Avg DOM	$ sold for under $200,000	Rnded %  under $200,000 sales
2005	48,313,250	198	18,957,965	39%
2006	53,265,082	174	21,493,391	40%
2007	42,227,772	208	14,154,322	34%
2008	23,524,570	239	8,481,967	36%
2009	17,4241,350	270	6,329,967	36%

In 2009 we experienced 1/3 the sales dollars of the high of 2006. That's a pretty significant reduction in sales to come to that number. Then again, there was still a lot of property that sold and quite a bit at the higher end for cash. This mostly due to the fact that with difficult financing, having land financed is even more challenging than financing residential.

Good morning,

Here are some statistics related to dollars and sales in the last few years.

At this point I'll put together a residential chart while, probably later today or in the morning there will be a land chart added. As always, this covers the 5 counties...four in the Northern Neck and Essex county. Beyond that this is pretty self-explanatory.

What this shows both agrees with what I expected and also doesn't. I said that the under $200,000 property sales had vastly increased relative to earlier years. In actuality this isn't so. But how it is significant is that the $200,000 and under sales are a more significant percentage of overall sales. You'll see.

Residential sales $

Year	Ttl $ sales	DOM	Ttl $ under $200,000	DOM	% $200,000 sales
2005	169,441,687	144	29,658,137	145	17%
2006	233,471,165	152	33,366,881	169	14%
2007	177,794,769	180	26,419,917	193	15%
2008	128,414,822	190	19,184,024	216	15%
2009	90,767,252	194	20,028,970	226	22%

2008 dollar sales were 55% of the high sales of 2006, while 2009 dollar sales were only 38% of that 2006 number. That certainly says something for the change in activity here on the Northern Neck. Still active, but not so many dollars coming this way.

Perhaps I'm a bit over-optimistic, but even the slightest improvement in the length of the days, and the brightness of light reflected off the icy, makes January feel a bit like we're moving toward spring. Yes, surely, this cold snap is aggravating and uncomfortable, but here in Virginia, and particularly around the rivers, the winter seems relatively mild.

Since the cold has been ongoing for a few days and will continue doing so, my husband is going to check on a vacant listing and make sure that all is well with it in terms of heating.  He'll open up cabinets under sinks and make sure nothing is causing any problems--we've been there recently but not in the last week or so. I know the people who have the house and can't easily get here will be glad to have the reassurance that all is well.

But back to the bit of optimism.... people are beginning to look around and talk spring, and talk about the "change in the market." I hope that it will be so. You really can't tell what will happen and with the mixed messages we get from the media...demand for goods up, sales of homes down....it's hard to know. Then again, it seems that jobs is more important than any of this and so maybe it is just a distraction to keep throwing  a lot of new numbers our way.

I never want to get on here and write without providing some statistics or potential statistics, and so I have some here. Also, my intention was, and still is, to write more about dollars and total dollar sales over the last 3 or 4 years. Unfortunately I have come across a technological glitch (which isn't mine, but affects me) and am trying to get it fixed in order to fulfill this commitment. So bear with me, please.

We know that everything is local and also that snapshots probably don't tell us much so  you may laugh when I provide the numbers of the past 7 days in our market. Nonetheless, since I would really like to be doing something significantly more elucidating, this is just a filler for the moment.

January 1 through January 7

26 new listings with 10 of them priced at over $400,000 vast majority in Lancaster and Northumberland counties

29 price changes with 9 of the properties priced at over $400,000. Properties exclusively in Lancaster and Northumberland counties.

9 sold with 1 priced at over $300,000.

251 expired.

On the springtime front...I have friends who run a farm stand right near Nomini Grove Grainery--Garners. On Friday afternoon in the late springtime, summer and early fall, I often help by making quick bouquets of flowers for them to take to their farmers market destinations on Saturdays. This might sound like a pleasant little romp, but it's far from the truth. There are workers who pick buckets of flowers early in the morning (hopefully) so that they are reasonably conditioned by late in the day. Then with at least a dozen large Ball jars with water set up in some makeshift area, I (or perhaps with a friend) go to town. The hope is to make 60 or 70 bouquets in the course of 2 to 3 hours. And generally that is what happens.And it is work!

In February I get to meet with them or at least talk to them over the phone, to make recommendations for the flowers they might grow. They have their basics and they know quite well what they want, but we always learn from our experiences. One key experience we had is there is way too much planted for what we actually need. The flower picking and sales generally fall by the wayside when your manpower goes out to harvest squash and corn and tomatoes and strawberries. It is a huge juggling act to keep everything in motion and not have the magnificent summers that we have here for growing things, just leave us in the dust.

Even though this may look like a sleepy little part of the world, there are all these currents that are moving swiftly. Lots of activity. Lots to be learned.

Out on the river the bald eagles seem to think that riding the ice floes is fun. Earlier this afternoon I went out to catch a collection of 6 of them either posing in majestic positions, or the adolescents chasing each other and probably seeing if the ice felt like a trampoline....probably does. Quite a group.

The ice makes wonderful crackling noises and since the channel is so powerful in the middle of the Rappahannock river, the activity is considerable. No slow moving bits of ice. Not like where I grew up in New York where you would go down to the harbor and find that everything was totally STOPPED. And that the ice was a foot thick and lapped on top of itself in total disarray, but lots of fun as long as you didn't try to jump from one to the other chunk of ice too too quickly.

Rumor has it that someone I knew when I first came here was known to have driven a Volkswagon beetle onto the Potomac sometime during a winter in the 1960s. They'd take the route coming somewhere off of the Machodoc. Now that had to be a bit exciting. I like ice skating, but have never considered going that far. I'd have to believe it was rather cold for quite a while for the river to qualify as a place to drive. As a matter of fact someone told me about this feat, and I in turn checked with the individual, and yes, it was so.

On another subject, this past weekend was the conclusion of deer hunting for the season. That activity is often perceived as a peculiar pastime by people who move here. I don't know how they feel about the earlier part of the season when there is bow and black powder, etc., since that is so private and really shouldn't be anyone's business. But deer hunting with dogs has been something that really makes people take notice.

When I first moved here and lived in an isolated area in Westmoreland county, the deer dogs would essentially get caught on the point and would circle round and round and round--they were lost. It was heartbreaking to see them lost, starving and extremely nervous about approaching people. It made no sense to me.

After a couple of years I volunteered to attend the Hunter/Landowner Commission meetings that were held in Montross, and report about them to the newspaper. During that time I learned that just like every other walk of life, hunters come in all shapes and sizes. Interestingly, despite the amount of reaction you hear from people about deer hunting with dogs, there were rarely non-hunters present at the meetings.

I would prefer not to judge  people who want to hunt with dogs, since by and large it comes with generations of tradition. What I'd rather look at is that the density of the Northern Neck has changed since I moved here 18 years ago. It is rather awkward to be driving along Route 3 in the middle of the day, just outside of Montross, and there are a few trucks pulled off to the side of the road. A bunch of guys dressed in camo and orange caps are flagging us down, so we drive slowly and they try to corral the skitterish dogs dancing across the 4 lane highway. There is something wrong with this picture.

Yes, we have a deer problem. Yes, we need to manage it. Yes, there are hunters who stay within their own farm, or friend's farms and hunt with bow, or black powder or are stand hunters. The issue related to deer hunting with dogs is one that will someday come to the fore, but in the meantime people who come here to vacation or retire have not decided that it is something to react to in a major way. Somehow we muddle through from Thanksgiving to the around the 1st of the year...it is yet to be seen when this will be taken on and perhaps become illegal. It is too bad to remove a tradition, but at some point there are too many people and it doesn't make sense. Has that time already come? 

Good morning,

Although many of the topics that have come up since August will be discussed in future, I decided I wanted a benchmark and that we would refer back to it. Last evening I went through a check of numbers of properties on the market on January 3, 2010 at 7pm in the morning. Every month from here on in, we'll look at what the inventory is and what has sold in any given month within these categories. Should provide us with some additional information.

Here's the January 3rd benchmark of active properties in the 5 counties: 

Price point $	Residential # prop.	Land (lots) # prop.
1-150,000	116	674
151,000-250,000	178	120
251,000-500,000	242	164
501,000-750,000	107	21
751,000 plus	93	28
751,000 plus sold 2009	14	2

This should be a very interesting year and now we have something we can refer to on a month by month basis.

If you have any other ideas about what you would like me to follow, please let me know at kam129@aol.com. I'd certainly like to hear from you. As you can probably tell, unless I have a specific problem, it is difficult to do calculations and give perspective, other than in fairly broad brushes. A particular concern would be nice to follow as well.

Thank you. --Kathryn

On New Year's day I attempted to put up a chart on million dollar residential sales in the Northern Neck and Essex county and didn't have the chart option come up in this program despite a number of efforts. So here is the result of my earlier sleuthing. (I rounded the numbers off...these are not totally exact dollars.)

Year	Res. sales $	Res. sales # of trans.
2005	15,500,000	12
2006	40,400,000	27
2007	25,200,000	20
2008	23,500,000	17
2009	950,000	1

This certainly says something about how the high-end market is being affected here and with 46 residences in that million dollar plus category, there have to be a handful of parties that NEED to sell. No segment of the population is completely immune from this downturn so certain choices are probably forcing some to reconsider their pricing as we speak.

And where does that leave (put) the owners in the $800,000 and $900,000 category...obviously they are going to be competing with properties that earlier would not have been available at and around their price point. All we can do is wait and see is what happens in the next few months in the United States and in our little part of the world.

Obviously there aren't that many of us who are looking to invest in a property at that high a price point, but the above exercise was done to show that some myths don't hold up. I had heard earlier in the year that million dollar plus properties were doing well....maybe that was in some other part of the world, for it certainly doesn't hold true here with our statistics.

On another note, I was speaking with friends yesterday about the ongoing issue of jobs in the Northern Neck. That has been an issue for as long as I have been here: what kind of jobs are there that exist for a fairly skilled workforce? And the answer is, very few. When first here, I brought my desktop publishing business with me and worked long-distance with about a dozen clients. That was fun. That was fine. I had good relationships with my clients and I had my projects and the occasional reason to run to DC. Year after year passed and the dynamics of those relationships changed. I had to think about an alternative to desktop publishing...and there wasn't much. I knew I wasn't going to become a farmer, or a fisherman ....and I was used to working on my own. Real estate was something to try, even at a time when it wasn't particulary go-go. Small business is the norm here. There isn't much industry.

A controversial business is trying to get established in Westmoreland county and there are lawsuits to obstruct this. At issue is whether or not the permits they were granted (by the now-deceased building and zoning administrator) were given within the required legal timeframe. For the time-being the business is not able to fully function and the question is out there among those of us who live here, or have summer homes....what makes sense for this part of the world in terms of business? There is certainly an influx of more affluent people who either have summer homes or full-time homes, but that makes for a rather skewed population. The jobs that are available for college graduates who were born and raised here and would want to return here are very few and far between.

Another question came up about a year and a half ago when  a study was done on available housing here in the Northern Neck. The study was developed to see if there were homes to be purchased or rented reasonably such that would ensure that teachers would be able to stay here.  What they discovered through their survey (and obviously it was pretty clear without the statistics) is that a starter home for someone coming to the area is quite expensive and rents are high as well. What occurs because of this is that most of the better, young teachers who come here, leave within a year or two because they can teach in a different area where their standard of living is much better.

To have a well-educated population would enable government to possibly recruit different types of industry here. Without that, any discussion related to having certain types of business move here, never get off the ground. So it is all caught up in education and how our counties would be seen by outside industry. This is not to suggest that anyone is looking to totally industrialize this part of the world. Just simply that there could be a couple of industries that could help to support the area's workforce without their having to drive to Richmond, Fredericksburg or even DC in order to work. This happens, and every day.

So how does this make a difference to you in coming to the Northern Neck....well it means that the infrastructure is very important. That those who are here provide important services. Also, as more and more people move here and the prices of properties have gone up, it has become more difficult for the "average guy" to purchase property on his salary.

It is all connected and we are important to each other...this is a small world. Perhaps what will come out of this that may be very helpful is that the speculation that brought in many who were building or fixing up quickly and then selling properties at great gain,  they will no longer have access to the types of loans, etc. That some of those properties are among the foreclosed ones, or ones that may be selling at close to cost and enabling someone local to move in and carry a reasonable mortgage.

Good morning,

Later today I'll put up some new information related to the market. Looking through at some previous statistics last evening, I realized that although we've had some reasonable volume in terms of numbers of properties that have sold in the last two years, sales show far fewer dollars in the real estate market. None of this is a surprise to any of us. It is just interesting how great the difference in dollars is say from the 2006 and 2007 market.

As we all hear, everything is local. It is all the more true here where there is one market and then there are many submarkets. Looking at Richmond county, a county where there are not many waterfront homes that come up for sale, here are some interesting numbers for you.

Year	Residential  WF sales $ Richmond County
2004	4,087,500
2005	989,900
2006	1,825,000
2007	2,229,000
2008	1,483,750
2009	2,824,900

What we can see is that the above numbers do not really reflect the run up of sales and then the reduction. That because the number of properties that come on in any given year varies, and there were more properties this year than practically any year in the last 5.

Another topic which relates to the 5-county area is high end properties. Here's an interesting set of numbers covering sales of listed at $1,000,000 or more for residential properties.  For some reason this software won't let me put another chart into this message (and I've logged out and back in to try to clear this up). I'll just have to do another chart, which will be included tomorrow. For the moment, suffice it to say there were 27 properties that sold in the million dollar plus range in 2006 with approximately $40,500,000 sales. And for 2009 there was one property that sold priced at over $1,000,000 and that sold for $950,000. I'll outline the full range from 2005 to today in tomorrow's information.

Until the next round....best wishes for the new year, and I'll keep you posted....on real estate and other local developments of interest.

Thank you for joining us here for information and perspective. --Kathryn

P.S. 221 listings expired this morning. We'll see if they come back or stay off for a while.

Here are numbers in terms of both residential and land sales (I started out the day only doing residential and then added land thereafter) for a number of years (January 1 through December 30.). It is a quick overview of 2005 to 2009 in regard to residential property sales in the four counties of the Northern Neck and Essex county. (Then added are the land sales numbers.)

Year	# Res. sold (Total)	# Res. sold  $200,000 or less	% of $200,000                                  or less
2005	531	217	40%
2006	648	240	37%
2007	507	183	36%
2008	365	144	39%
2009	339	160	47%

Then there are the actives in this category. There are 815 residences on the market at the moment and of them, 237 are priced at $200,000 or under. That means 29% of the current inventory is priced in the category where next to 50% sold in the last year. Also, we currently have more than two year's inventory on hand at a time where traditionally we have fewer listings.

In regard to land,  here's a chart that deals with the same counties, etc. as the residential one.

Year	# land parcels sold (Total)	# land parcels sold   $200,000 or less	% of $200,000 or less sales
2005	436	351	80%
2006	428	338	79%
2007	296	221	75%
2008	194	148	76%
2009	142	105	73%
Active now	1122	828	74%

Here we have almost 8 years supply of land if the sales were to occur at the same rate as this past year. That's a lot of land!!

That's really an interesting question, and the answer has been constantly evolving in my perspective.

When I first started in real estate, 14 years ago, I don't think I had a clue. Of course I wanted to do the best I could for my clients, but was just learning the ropes. Somehow it was all very confusing with the possibility of quick money, seemingly for very little effort. It didn't make sense to me and the truth of real estate was far different, at least most of the time.

Over the years I have realized that to provide good service involves a lot of knowledge and perspective. Telling people things they don't want to hear is not the best idea, although in today's market that is pretty important with some sellers.

Developing a sense that our work together, whether it is realtor with buyer or realtor with seller, is a kind of a partnership is significant. What we want to do is communicate well and be honest. On a number of occasions I have ended up with clients who have told me they have been searching for property for a considerable amount of time--at least a  year--and that their agent had sent them nothing that related to what they've stated they were interested in. What those realtors goals were in sending listings that didn't interest the buyer, I have not a clue, but it certainly didn't help the buyer, and the realtor spent valuable time with no result. Communication. Understanding needs. Pursuing the client's goal first and foremost is all part of the job.

Trust is important. And to price a property appropriately at this time in the market is crucial. At certain price points there is such a glut of property that taking a listing and not pricing it well is a promise that it will hang out on the market for the next 6 months or a year, or longer. If a seller is in a difficult situation and needs to sell, there is nothing more cruel than to take something at a given price knowing fully well that it won't sell in the needed timeframe--and at the same time hoping the seller will adjust quickly enough when it gets dicey to enable you, the realtor to sell it.

Earlier this afternoon I was doing some work for a friend of mine who wants to put a nice waterfront lot on the market. It had been on the market earlier and not sold (they had been marketing it themselves). Looking at the property now and looking at what has sold since the first of the year, it is clear to me that that property needs to drop $100,000 just to get into the game. With fewer buyers and less opportunity for financing through a mortgage company, one has to get real.

In looking on our MLS I checked on some other listings to find that some properties that have been on the market for more than two years have now dropped to about 50% of what they were originally listed at. Does that make any sense? Well yes it does if the agent was part of the "agree with the seller, the market will catch up with the price" contingent.

(As an aside, I went to look at an overview of the aging inventory just out of curiosity. Looking at active listings I found there are almost a dozen listings that have been in our system continuously since 2006. There are 55 from 2007, 150 from 2008 and 717 from 2009. These are residential listings from all the counties we cover...and in our MLS there is an "other" county as a catch all. So this doesn't tell you much about my usual five county area, but tells you more about how some properties sit there because either there isn't a need by the seller to sell them, or perhaps the agent is not pushing to help the client get the job done. Can't know, but it is interesting.

And another pet interest of mine is homes priced in excess of $1 million....there has been one that has sold in the five-county area this year...priced in excess of $1 million, but sold slightly under that. There are 46 residences priced at over $1 million in the five-county region right now. Hope no one really needs to sell!!)

Price is important. Positioning is important. Understanding what value a property has within the overall market is very important. What has sold in the last 6 months that is comparable, and why was it that it sold. These are the facts that your realtor should cover very clearly and thoroughly with you and position you as a partner in decision-making and in success--whether you're a buyer or seller.

Well, we've made it--almost. The Christmas build-up will have to end by tomorrow, Christmas day, or at least for most of us. And then we are on a reasonable track to New Years.

Wishing you all very well for this holiday season however you choose to celebrate...perhaps even if you celebrate that you don't have to do very much and a lot of the pressures from day-to-day living are briefly suspended.

And no, I'm not a grinch, it is just that I like it simple and so once I get off the computer my next step is to take all the pine boughs and various and sundry greenery that looks alive and vital (that I've cut while outside on this glorious day) and put it into large containers and add some small ornaments. That's the Christmas tree!! and it works really well. Beyond that, it will be time to do some serious cooking.

I didn't want to forget to add a few numbers here and so this is what I have, fourth quarter sales for the last 4 years, from October 1 to December 24th. As always for the four counties of the Northern Neck and Essex county.

Oct. 1-Dec. 24	Residential sales #	Land sales #
2006	118	65
2007	85	67
2008	75	31
2009	85	30

Perhaps what one can deduce from this is that sales were quieting down by 2007 even if it wasn't being widely noted. That despite the incredible strain the economy went through in late 2008 and the widespread fear, there were a reasonable number of sales here. And much as this year has had a continuation of late 2008 feelings, with people concerned about their jobs and financing being really tough, there has been activity here. Not like some places I hear about where virtually nothing is moving. 

We are affected by the trickle down effect of the urban and suburban properties not appreciating and people losing their jobs in higher priced locations (places with better job opportunities), yet despite the strains there is still good value here and reasons why people are purchasing. We have our problems but are far enough away from big industry that we probably aren't directly affected by some of the business closings, just the overall economy. Yes, I know, I used the word "just." We can hope that next year will make 2009 something that helps us focus on how fortunate we are when the economy is rolling, or even just stable. That there is much to be thankful for in our basic everyday life and 2009 made us stop and think.

To 2010 and better perspective, better fortune and most importantly good health. 

Yes, looking at the news, this storm has been horribly disruptive up and down the east coast. Here in what feels like the middle of nowhere, my expectation is that all is in pretty good shape. We are going to venture out in quest of maple syrup since that was the other element totally lacking yesterday when my husband wanted pancakes for breakfast.

This serves as the excuse to get into the truck and ride the 8 miles to our local Food Lion. The perspective we gain from that brief trip will be posted shortly. My expectation is that once on a secondary road and off the association road, we will not have any trouble. Patches of ice here and there, but 360 will look like there hasn't been a storm. We'll see.

10:30....based on the observations of our trip to Food Lion it is as suspected; secondary roads have been cleared, but are still somewhat icy depending on how shaded they are. Primary roads are completely clear and with this very bright, clear day many of the secondary ones will clear off. Not too bad for our part of the world. Looking at the accumulation, though, it is probably close to 10 inches or so.

Last evening the snow started here on the Rappahannock around 7 or so. It intensified and so by the time I went to sleep there must have been 3 or 4 inches. At this point, around 8:30 in the morning, it hasn't been snowing for a couple of hours and I don't think the snowfall is that considerable, maybe 6 inches at the most.

With sleety rain falling it keeps me from walking around and taking photos and the trees are losing their heavy snow coverage. "Tuggy," the tugboat captain is pushing a barge from over in the Tappahannock area, just cruised past us on his way up to Fredericksburg. A nice photo opportunity that doesn't happen too often.

"Tuggy" has often dressed the tugboat with lights at Christmas, looking like a tree at night as he moves up the river. You can hear a deep rumble of his diesel engine and that is what alerts one to look out and see the slow moving spectacle. This year I don't think he has put lights up, or then again...there may be more than one tugboat and I just haven't figured it out.

The birds are fairly happy. We've taken the snow off the bird bath and filled it. A bit of seed scattered around seems to keep the English and song sparrows busy, along with the red-winged blackbirds and an occasional cardinal. Yesterday the bluejays were the big boys at the food and bird bath site, but they must have found another location to take care of them this morning. The seagulls are still congregating in the middle of a cornfield where the accumlation of water from the previous big rains left a large puddle for them. They were floating in it a day or two ago, but perhaps they are thinking of ice skating today.

The local TV stations are discussing this snowstorm as if it will have a major impact here, and maybe it will. For the moment it seems an event that makes everything quiet and slower....and very nice.

There are some power outages here (the representative from Dominion Virginia on the TV just said that the Northern Neck and Gloucester area have the most outages...numbers weren't offered in this report) , though seemingly manageable numbers. The high winds we are supposed to get are only occasionally coming through.

Our newspaper wasn't delivered. This, of course, is cause for concern, since it is a significant addition....for a little while, to any weekend morning. Even though this part of the world doesn't get plowed until rather late on the list-- if ever 1 neighbor has ventured out and not returned, in a truck, 4W drive. To me, this means it isn't hard to get out of here. My husband doesn't agree. He can't quite understand that my upbringing in New York included needing to get up a steep hill to get home...and this as a teenager. So you would get rolling along the main road....really a pretty good acceleration, and then you'd gun it up Springhill Road. It wasn't as if we were being crazy; we learned this from our parents. Hopefully you had pushed it just enough and gotten to the top of the hill, otherwise you slowly zig zagged back down the hill, went the other direction, turned around and tried again. I think all the neighbors had some sort of understanding of our procedure since I don't recall anyone ever having an accident....just the slow slide back when the top of the hill just was too illusive.

I'll keep adding to this today if there is more to say.

11:30 update. The newspaper came... a bit late, but it got here despite the fact that there has been no plow in sight and perhaps only the one truck has gone out. Beyond that this is not ideal photography weather. The wind is beginning to whip up a bit and with the fine snow that has started to come down, it just isn't very conducive to walking around. Perhaps later in the day we'll get into the 4-wheel drive truck and do some driving. That may afford a handful of photo opportunities.

And just to make sure there are a few numbers in this post I went and checked to see what has gone on in the last 21 days on our MLS site. There are preset numbers in a drop-down menu and 21 was the closest number to 19, today being the 19th so I chose that. Anyway, probably not too much will change between now and Monday. So for the last 21 days there have been 86 new listings that have come on. There have been 174 price changes. 27 properties sold and 184 expired. Of the 27 that sold, 14 were priced at over $200,000 and of those 14, eight were listed at $400,000 or above. Yes, there really is activity in December on the Northern Neck.

At the end of the day there has been very little change in weather. The wind that started up earlier today subsided. There has barely been any additional snow and so that is all that can be said of the weather. I'm pretty sure it is all over with the exception of the snow and sleet that have layered in places and may make some roads treacherous.

P.S. On another front, here is a link to my sister's store on Etsy, an online artwork display and sales site. A fair amount of her work related to the Northern Neck is on there. She is a professional oil painter and printmaker, and we have had a long relationship such that I send her photos that she uses as subject matter. Years ago she came here and discovered all sorts of sites that she knew intimately because she had painted them, though never seen them. Graineries, and barns and churches and waterscapes. They are part of her vocabulary along with other subjects. You might enjoy these even if we've missed that window of opportunity for Christmas http://bonniemurrayart.etsy.com

Last evening I flipped through the most recent Fortune magazine to see what they had to offer in terms of perspective. In reading through the portion about the market projections for real estate there is the expectation that Virginia will need to have some further price adjustments (downwards) during 2010. Well that most certainly may be true. Can't fault them with this logic in that when they lump Virginia in with a bunch of states there is a lot of variation. Even just looking at Virginia as a whole is next to impossible to predict. Yes, we have jobs issues, and unemployment and budget shortfalls, but really this doesn't really help me decide where we stand on the Northern Neck.

This started me thinking about how local everything is in real estate. Certainly, yes, there are elements of this market that we are all affected by. There is the money availablilty, mortgage company policies and unwillingness to fund much, appraisers and their issues and settling down that side of the market, foreclosure impact, etc., that none of us can totally escape. Even the fact that someone might have cash available for a purchase factors into their ability (and strength) in purchasing a property. And if you do have cash, is it better to have it in a property which has hopefully dropped to its lowest value or is it better to have most of it invested elsewhere? (Please let me know where "elsewhere" is as we speculate on ideas such as gold, and certain types of index funds.)

I decided to go back to the numbers one more time and in a rather short period of time. Yes, I promised not to, but this wasn't anywhere near as work intensive.

From December 1 to December 11, here are the sales figures, number of sales in the five counties...the four in the Northern Neck plus Essex.

Dec. 1 to 11th	Residential #	Land #
2006	9	8
2007	7	5
2008	9	6
2009	6	2

Within those sales numbers in 2006, no sales of residential exceeded $400,000. In 2007, 1 sold for over $500,000. 2008 had 8 of the 9 at under $350,000 but one listed right below $1,000,000 sold for full price. And finally for 2009 there were 5 of the 6 at under $300,000 and one that sold for $460,000. Not such a bad showing for 2009.

In land the numbers are better understood with 7 of the 8 in 2006 selling for under $200,000, with one at $375,000. Next in 2007, 4 of the 5 were under $200,000 and one was at $350,000. 2008 numbers (6 total) with 4 under $70,000, one around $100,000 and another around $600,000. And the two sales in 2009 were at the $139,000 and $11,500 price points.

With such a tiny timeframe what kind of generalization can you take away from it...well the thought that nothing is selling this year in this area, just isn't true. The numbers have shown that throughout the year. There are markets that are in much worse shape than we are in.

Once I get to the end of the year and start to do the numbers, and I will continue with the same set of counties, but then I think about the issue of "local.." Within our market there are many sub-markets. There are people who will buy within a certain length of drive from DC or Fredericksburg, which may mean that they will only buy in Westmoreland county or perhaps Richmond or Essex. That leaves out Northumberland county and Lancaster.

There are people who purchase in Essex county specifically because it is a more reasonable drive to Richmond or commute to Bowling Green or even Fredeircksburg. Then there are people who prefer the Kilmarnock area because there is more infrastructure with a hospital and a fair amount of shopping. There area also a couple of great golf courses that are very important to those in the area. It feels a little bit more like many of the parts of the world that people are coming from. It may be important to them to be able to get to Richmond or Williamsburg, so crossing that bridge over to Middle Peninsula is important.

So we've left out Northumberland county in this and they may well have the most amount of waterfront property available. Sometime take a look at a local map and look at all the squiggles that represent the rivers and creeks in Northumberland...it is incredible.

And the types of people who are moving here are not easily defined. Certainly we have the local people who move around for a variety of reasons...then we have the people who have come here that exhibit a broad range of needs when purchasing a home. Some just want a haven from the city and may purchase an inland farm or large lot, a few acres and they build. Others want a summer getaway and don't have requirements for a house that can become a retirement home in a few years. Others want that waterfront property to be the retirement home and so have to look carefully at all of the attributes about that home.

Then factor in what is most important for a lot of purchasers and that is the water. Waterfront, what exactly is waterfront? It is a lot of different things and affect people in different ways. Waterfront is being able to look at it and get to it. Do you need to own it? Maybe. Waterfront, is it creeky and filled with wildlife and you can get your canoe or kayak out and have a wonderful time with silence except for the birds? Well yes. Waterfront, is it where you can put your boat out on the pier on the river side of the house and if need be, hoist it up with a boat lift and have things pretty under control. Oh yes. Waterfront, do you need to have good, really good water depth for your sailboat and so a lot of the creeks don't have that kind of depth at the mouth of the creek or river. Yes to that too.

And there may be further requirements. If you have friends who already boat on a given river, it may be that you only want to be either on the Rappahannock or the Potomac side. So we tend to find people from Richmond are most interested in the Rappahannock waterfront, while the Fredericksburg/Washington DC buyers are interested in the Potomac. Not always, but most of the time.

I've been told that the people who buy part-time homes in lower Northumberland tend to be serious boating people since they want to be close to the Bay....not a cruise to it, truly close. They are willing to trade off the extra travel time via car in order to have far less travel time to get to the Bay.

So what is local? An interesting issue, even in our little world here on the Northern Neck.  

For those of you who have been following most of this since its beginning in August, none of what is here will surprise you. True to form I have taken a random date, December 3rd and looked at what has happened in terms of sales since January 1st.

I'm looking forward to the end of the year and then will not only compare the information to be culled from our online MLS system, but will also refer back to the Comp books that are published once a year. Our vendor keeps approximately 3 and a half or 4 years of date online. Thereafter, I'm  not sure where it goes, but do not believe it is archived. So to go back further than 2006 it's a good thing that I have these comp books to refer to.

That said, here is the smattering related to residential sales (5 counties).

Res. sales #	2006	2007	2008	2009
Jan. 1-Dec. 3	617	491	349	308

Of the 2009 numbers, 179 or the 308 are properties priced $250,000 or less.  Eighty-seven more of the 308 were bewteen $250,000 and $500,000. Therefore 266 of the 308 or 85% of all properties sold this year have been priced under $500,000.

There has been one property listed in excess of a million dollars that has sold this year, although the selling price was under a million. Currently there are 42 properties in the five counties priced at over $1,000,000. Yes, just a smattering.

It is everywhere, even if you try to avoid it. The Christmas season is upon us. Yesterday for a while I went to one of my more favorite locations to browse, the Essex Square Antiques Mall. Every couple of months I go by there, generally with the hope that there will not be anything that reaches out and grabs me and tells me it needs to come home with me. Often I leave feeling that I really appreciate the pieces that I have--large or small, that I have collected in my life. Nonetheless it is a good place to get an antiquer/junker fix.

(I may be wrong, but most of the shops in Tappahannock where you can find antiques are rather expensive and cluttered. The Queen Street place right by the bridge, though, has very nice quality pieces which are well-displayed and for me is worth a visit. I find though, that I can't really afford to take advantage of their wares.)

In the background during my visit at the Antiques Mall was Christmas music and that was a little bit more than I wanted. There has never been anything that they've done there that has put me off kilter before and maybe it is just that I have sucessfully insulated myself from the purchasing mania this long weekend(except for seeing what was on the TV news or the string of emails from retailers who want my business).

There is no question about it, this is the season of selling and hopefully the sales numbers will give us a mild sense that stability is coming to our part of the world.

If you are on the Internet and looking at property via different websites, maybe you too are feeling prepared or beginning to feel prepared to buy or sell. Job confidence, pricing comfort, loan possibilities for buyers, and for sellers an understanding that we are probably fairly stabilized, at least in our part of the world. That isn't to say that all segments of real estate here are appropriately priced yet, but a number of them  have become just that.

In the 18 years that I've lived in the Northern Neck I've lived in three counties. Thinking about what has been particularly nice I think about living in the Heathsville area. In that town you have a very nice library, the veterinarian's office, a large supermarket (that they've upgraded), the courthouse, the post office, a couple of banks, Great Stuff (one of my favorite places to antique/junk), the St. Stephens thrift shop....and a real sense of community. Oh, and it is part of the Farmer's Market, so once a month there is a large collection of vendors right there for you to peruse. Just outside of town Dawn has her kennel, where I unsuccesfully took each of my two dogs for training. She is a good dog trainer.

As an aside.....in Warsaw there will be a coffee shop opening up on the corner right at the center of town. I wish the people very well. What a brave venture to start at this time with this economy. And how particularly optimistic since there is a very confusing light to contend with. Hopefully with the parking behind the building, and the additional county parking just behind that, there will be a reasonable flow of people to the shop. I don't yet know exactly what they will be serving or the hours, but I'll keep you posted. The hope had been for them to open by Thanksgiving, but they missed that. It will be soon though.

Obviously in Montross, the Art of Coffee has wide recognition and for those commuting up to Northern Virginia, particularly after a weekend here, that is a very welcome addition to Montross.

So here is my bit of selling, other than asking that you consider our services when you decide to buy or sell; my sister is an accomplished artist who lives in St. Louis. We have a very nice creative interaction since I love to take photographs and she often does artwork from them. Over the years she has created many many pieces through that venue and on her website, especially in the last year, she has mounted a number of small paintings that are reasonably priced. I realize that for some of you, this is of no interest at all, but for others it might be a solution for a gift for the holidays...especially for someone interested in the Northern Neck. This isn't the mass-produced, seen-it-all-before kind of artwork. And if you have a moment you can decide for yourself. The site is www.bonniemurray.com.  Once on the site you select her blog (My Blog) and keep going to the Older Posts at the bottom of each of the pages to see more and more pieces. She is quite prolific and her commission work sometimes takes her in different directions....so do keep looking even if she goes on a non-Northern Neck tangent from time to time.

And in closing this out...I would really appreciate if you have questions about a specific issue in the market on the Northern Neck, that you contact me. I could explore the answers by looking things up for you, please let me know. Just send an email to kam129@aol.com and I will be glad to check on something and perhaps even start a discussion. As you can probably tell, I'm going to wait until the first of the year to start really looking at numbers again. It may be that some small issue comes up, but I'd really like to see the year end numbers.

Thank you for your interest, curiosity and indulgence. --Kathryn

Good morning,

It seems I should start with a clean slate here and finish off what I proposed to do a couple of days ago. That's easier than trying to fix up the previous post.

The homework is complete and here are the findings in terms of number of sales and dollars spent during a tiny segment, October 1 through November 25 of 2007, 2008 and 2009. You are perhaps wondering what one can conclude from such a small bit of time. Having done this and thought about it seriously, my first conclusion is that you probably can't conclude much. And it is a lot of work for a short period of time where things can be rather skewed by one or two occurences. But since I've done the work, here's the results and I do have a broad conclusion which I'll put at the end.

Sales in 5 counties, numbers (#) & dollars* ($) for 10/1-11-25, 3 years

Year	Res. #	Res. $	Land #	Land $
2007	56	23,354,000	49	6,881,000
2008	55	21,653,000	21	1,732,000
2009	57**	17,565,000	20	2,004,000

*rounded off to the nearest 1,000

** in the previous post it was stated that 56 residences had sold. One more came in later in the afternoon after I wrote, so it is actually 57.

We know the market was quieting down at the end of 2007. We also know that nothing truly major had pulled the rug out from under the market (or at least it wasn't broadly known). So in this brief moment of time the sales have not changed anywhere near as dramatically in our part of the world as one generally hears in the news. You might say, well an almost 25% drop from 2007 to 2009 in terms of residential dollars is a lot, and it is (we'll have to see what the year end numbers look like for these three years). But it certainly isn't the kind of total standstill that one hears about in other markets. That's a reasonable amount of sales given how small this market is.

And looking at land...people are buying. Yes, the majority of sales are cash, but there are a lot of people who must be wanting to move on with their lives and they are finding a price point where buyers are willing to purchase. By 2008 it looks as if the speculation was going out of land sales, that if we assume that many of the sales for October to November 25th were already set by the time the meltdown began, that there was already a cooling of the market. (Again, I know that this really isn't a large enough sampling to tell us much...it's really speculation.)

Just recently I have had the occasion to hear about two potential purchases where individuals thought they were safe...that the market was sufficiently troubled that  certain properties would be on for quite a while. That didn't come true. Good deals are good deals and there are people who can manage them once they become outstanding.

My broad conclusion....the market has had a shock and sales have been more difficult throughout 2009. Our market though, is so different from many others and with the kind of run-up we'd had there is a fair amount of flexibility with many sellers in their profit taking. It hasn't been a bad year at all.

Having read the "good news" about sales based on the National Association of Realtors numbers for the last couple of months, I thought, let's look at what has been going on here in the last month or two. Granted the good news of increased sales was tempered with the fact that this level won't be sustained and we may return to this elevated point in the spring sometime.

I looked at just numbers of sales from the 1st of October until the 25th of November for 2007, 2008 and 2009 (As always this relates to the four counties on the Northern Neck and Essex county too). These numbers probably don't tell us much since what I need to do to make them a more valuable tool by adding up the selling prices to see how many dollars were traded. That is something I will try to do tomorrow, or Friday.** In the meantime, though, here are the figures:

Oct. 1 through Nov. 25	Residential #	Land #
2007	56	49
2008	55	21
2009	56	20

Looking at these numbers and seeing if they tell me anything reminds me of years ago when I worked in an advertising agency. At the time companies were just beginning to use computers for different business uses and a computerized approach was considered one providing greater effectiveness and credibility to allocation of monies for different media. One day one of the account people requested I run the computer program (media) for a particular client for their magazine (print) purchase. So away I went with the parameters I was given...and I ran the program in order to find the appropriate publications. Well the results didn't exactly fit what the account person wanted in terms of which publications he thought the client should run their product in. A couple of the parameters were "tweaked" and lo and behold we had exactly the list he would have chosen without the computer. But now we had results that were "official" and "computerized" and therefore with greater weight. Numbers. What do they mean? Numbers. How are they interpreted? We must all stand back and look at how they were derived and if they tell us much at all. I promise, though, to do the calculations about dollars spent for the above categories and perhaps then we will know something. Happy Thanksgiving!!

** I started last evening to look at the numbers ($) and although I haven't gotten very far it seems as if for both 2008 and 2009 that period came through with roughly the same dollar value in sales. I removed the one outlying figure in each of them (the highest sale) and then each value was about 1.4 million dollars for the month and 25 days.

Once this work is completed there will be a little chart similar to the one above showing the outcome. And it will be soon.

Yes, we'd all like to have one right now. And most specifically one that tells us where real estate will be late next spring. Are we going to be in a better position than we are in right now, or will it be a time of more decision making on the part of sellers who might have to consider dropping their prices even further? Knowing the answers would make a lot of our jobs easier. This is true for buyers, sellers and realtors alike.

This year is no different from any other in that real estate activity drops off in late fall. There are lots of reasons, though partially it is simply perception since many people believe there is no activity at this time of year. Then also it has to do with the fact that people are over-committed with many activities for the holidays. 

Another moment in time. Today in looking at listings there have been 142 listings in the last 30 days. Within those thirty days there have been 141 price changes, and 208 expireds. 58 properties sold (13 of them priced in excess of $300,000). This is within our whole system, so it does not represent exclusively the 5 counties that are used in the examples on this site. Those five counties, though are the majority locations for our listings.

For the five counties there are 808 active residential listings with 291 sold since the beginning of the year (31 of the solds were priced $400,000 or higher).

For the five counties there are 1111 active land listings with 125 sold since January 1st.

Just a snapshot. Nothing to really foretell the future. And of course of the expireds, numerous ones may have been put back on the market and others may have just been left off the market until spring, or until the decision is made to get into the market when it is more stable.

And outside the wind is swirling around and there is speculation about how high the tides will be and I'm reminded how all real estate is local. There are places here that are low-lying and that get pounded. There are places that are in a more reasonable locations and are less likely to be hit by rising tides or swirling winds. We'll see what the results are within the next week or so. I'll report in after the information is in.

Not quite 9 on Sunday morning and I've taken a walk looking to find the dogs. They are out having a glorious day partially because they are dogs and partially because this is a most beautiful day.

Days like these are what anyone who wants to be on or near the river dream about. Even though it is November it will reach close to 70 today. There are already a small handful of boats out on the water with fishermen ready to take action on the glassy water of the Rappahannock. Quiet. Peaceful. Rich colors of the beginning of full fall color, although the brilliant soybeans have mostly faded to a dark, rusty gold.

No, not numbers today. Tomorrow is another day where numbers can be looked at and hopefully will give us answers or at least bring us closer to answers. Today is a day where the specialness of the Northern Neck just percolates up and is so very present in every mile.

Imagine taking a walk for half an hour and hardly seeing a vehicle. Imagine looking at the fields along the way and realizing that what they were doing yesterday was putting in seed for that winter wheat that comes up so quickly--almost without your knowing and then in the spring provides a combination of blues and greens that are so ultimately spring.

In a way, for those of us who live in an area where the summer people are the majority, this is a strange time of transition. The partying, energetic groups dissipate, although yesterday a couple of young souls in wet suits braved the waters to play jetski games in front of this run of houses.A last summer moment where they celebrate with the help of modern technology.And the houses will be winterized and fewer and fewer will come until it becomes almost completely quiet except for the noise of the birds in the morning. The ospreys have disappeared and the eagles seem more present. Sparrows and bluebirds were along this morning's walk. The goldfinches are turning drab and melting into the background. I look forward to the occasional group of cedar waxwings who travel through. Bluejays and mockingbirds are relying quite heavily on the birdbath...with a small smattering of cardinals at dusk. What a world for birding....and the Audubon Society is very active. The Rappahannock River National Wildlife Refuge is just around the corner with a superb biologist, Sandy Spencer a birding expert who leads groups and gives talks from time-to-time.

So breakfast on the screened porch? A short trip for brunch in Tappahannock or elsewhere? Quiet reading of the Sunday paper with the sun streaming in the windows? It is all here to be enjoyed and shared.

I hope the rest of your day is filled with any outdoor activity that is the greatest fun for you...or at least immerses you in the beautiful air and light.Mostly I need to plant my hostas....but if you want to see the sublime Northern Neck you might look at www.kathrynmurrayphotography.mosaicglobe.com (click on the gallery page).And please realize I haven't figured out what to do with these photos yet, so much as I'm suggesting you take a look, it is purely so that you too, can enjoy the sublime moments of the Northern Neck.

Looking for trends, or ways to anticipate the market sometimes just doesn't come up with clear results. For instance looking at a series of numbers listed below, I can't really say what will happen in the next 6 months with waterfront lots. It will be interesting if the inventory can be reduced at all through sales.

There are currently 315 waterfront lots listed for under $400,000 in the 5 county area. Of those 145 of them, roughly half, are listed at $200,000 or under. 15 sold in the last 6 months in the $200,000 to $400,000 price point, while 12 sold up to $200,000. So 27 total sales in 6 months of waterfront properties in the under $400,000 price point. Approximately 6 years of inventory currently is available here on the Northern Neck.

Comparison with other years to come shortly.

Last evening I spoke with the person I sat with at the auction, who stayed until the end with the auctioneers. What I didn't say in earlier messages is that I left the Steamboat Inn and did some errands in Montross and then had to return by there in order to check on some bush-hogging on a lot. As I was driving back I knew the auctioneers had left since one car I'd noticed in the parking lot caught my eye driving up 202--not everyone has a license plate which is GAVELGAL. So they left by about 1:20.

My contact person told me that they did eventually go to a live auction and started with a price that I believe was in the high $300,000s and got no action. A variety of tactics were tried in order to get someone in at a number that would be acceptable to the bank, but nothing worked. So as expected, it is probable that the auction house is working those contacts received by having people sign up on Saturday. This may or may not enable the bank to sell the property.

The property is quite a proposition for someone to take on. It's most recent purchase price was close to $300,000 in 2002 and the assessed value is in excess of $600,000 now. My understanding is that the annual taxes are around $4,000. Not a lot of money to people from outside of the area, but lots of money for us who are used to reasonable property taxes.

We'll see where this goes and I'll keep you posted.  --KAM

Now that we've reached the first of November it is reasonable to check on the last three months to see what has been going on. Earlier in the year it seemed pretty clear that there was a positive surge related to a variety of factors in the economy with one simply that the weather was so nice. Much as we'd like to believe that this is all cut and dry, neatly by the numbers, there is a bunch of emotion caught up in why people buy anything. And buying homes, particularly waterfront, either retirement or second homes, has to be quite emotional, with strong expectations of something very special..

When I set out to look at what had sold in August, September and October in 2007, 2008 and 2009 I didn't expect our current numbers to look so good. But they do. In 2007 there were 139 residential sales in the 5 counties. Of those, there were 28 that were listed at more than $400,000. For 2008 there were 117 with 31 priced above $400,000 and for $2009, there have been 89 with 20 over $400,000. As I counted the over $400,000 ones in 2007 and 2008 I noted the list price of over $1,000,000 listed a number of times and obviously that is one category which has not been turning over in the Northern Neck.

So roughly 25 percent of the homes were priced at $400,000 or above within each of the three years. And we are having sales in 2009 at 64% of 2007 which seems pretty good given a lot of other markets.

Just to see if there was any information in these numbers, I looked at sales in October only and can see that that is too short a timeframe to really learn anything. In 2007 there were 35, 2008 --42, and 2009 we had 32 sales. Not much of a trend. It simply says we are having reasonable activity in our current market.

On another front, and simply taking from some research I was doing yesterday here's some information on land. I was looking at waterfront land that had been listed in Lancaster and Northumberland county. The price point was $150,000 to $275,000. From the beginning of the year there have been 12 waterfront properties sold in Northumberland and 4 in Lancaster. For those two counties, there are currently 68 properties on the market and 30 respectively. So lots of inventory. This suggests that I need to go back and look at what the inventory is for residential in the market right now and put that in here. That will give us more to go by.----------------------------------------------------------------

Back again, and the inventory numbers paint a different picture as to what is going on here. Despite reasonably strong sales there is a great glut of inventory and that shows that we are really looking for buyers--lots more buyers!! There is a total of 898 residences listed as active in our 5 county area. Of those I broke them out into categories:

5 county listed	898
0-$150,000	126
$150,000-$250,000	211
$250,000-$400,000	220
$400,000-$600,000	173
$600,000-$800,000	80
$800,000-$1,000,000	51
$1,000,000 plus	49

With 278 homes having sold since the beginning of the year, this inventory of close to 900 homes would take approximately 3 years to sell with the current market factors. This is how quickly it is anticipated the inventory would be absorbed. That is a long time, and if we looked at specific segments there would be a longer timeframe and that is why it is important to know where you stand either as a buyer or seller in this market.

(And for those of you who check my numbers, I did add these numbers up and found that the total comes to 910. This discrepancy happened because I didn't have the search numbers organized correctly. For instance if a property was priced at $150,000 then it went both into the first category and in the second (should have searched the first category at 0-$149,999). None of this changes things dramatically. I just know next time I do this, I won't have that overlap.)

If you want to know about your part of the market, call or email me and I will be glad to help put your specific property (as a prospective buyer or seller) in perspective, in this market.  804-333-3311 or kam129@aol.com. Thank you.

--A side note in this day's report: land numbers in the five counties. 1102 listings that are active, with 116 sold since the first of the year.--

Thursday evening I had said I'd further discuss the auction and the appraisal education, but haven't gotten to it. The individual I need to speak with regarding the outcome of the auction has not been tracked down and if I were a betting person I'd say that there was no final outcome. It looked as if these official people were getting on paper the information related to serious (or potentially serious) bidders and that these groups or individuals would be pitted against each other at a later date, probably over the phone or through another written sealed bid situation. Not that there was an overwhelming response to this auction opportunity. Probably if they had a half dozen people who are interested, that was a lot.

As we sat in the dining room at the Mt.Holly Steamboat Inn and were told that everything conveyed with the exception of a boat tied at the end of the pier, we all wondered when lunch would be served. This because there were tablecloths on the tables and dishes set out. No flatware though. Discussion floated around to what great sunsets you see from that room, and that is true. So as a truly romantic sort of Bed & Breakfast type, there must have been great things to be seen while there (no there was no sunset, but yes  there are rooms and rooms and rooms and lots of space and some nicely fixed up rooms, and some rather needy sort of spaces).

Once I know more I will post it for you, but suffice it to say, I'm betting this is on hold for a bit.

Regarding the appraisal education...to some degree it was very interesting and then there is always the mundane. What most interested me in going was to see how large the class would be and what types of people would compose the class--also, their reactions to the current environmnet. As expected, the 20 and 30 somethings were almost entirely gone. Just as is normally true, 80 to 85% of the class was comprised of men. There were a number of appraisers who seemed entirely undaunted by the current market and you would think they were making a zillion dollars. Then there were the people who had been in it for a long time and they were talking about getting out or finding something else to do and wouldn't recommend it as a job to someone new getting in.

There is a fair amount of realtor bashing at classes like these, because realtors do cause appraisers a lot of pain. Sometimes it is because the appraiser perhaps hasn't done a great job, but sometimes it is just because a realtor really wants a deal to go through and will push real hard. This in conjunction with the situation with the mortgage people (prior to the AMCs being put in place earlier this year and their being the ones pushing) and the appraiser is in a really tough situation. And it doesn't seem fair at all that appraisers have huge liability for what they do, yet are handing their information over to the "client"...generally the mortgage broker who up until recently required no education and was the party who got paid only when the deal went through.

So imagine yourself in a situation where you have been doing your job for years. It is a demanding one where you drive to a home, measure the interior for a drawing, note the various condition issues, take photos of front, back and street. You return back to your office to do the drawing and to pull the comps and to do the research at the courthouse, or online. You have to make a judgement related to the value of the property, fill out a lengthy report...and I'm sure I've left a number of things out. Now, 5 or so years later, an additional layer of management comes in and the fee that you can charge is now 15 or 20 or 25% less because of that management. And this isn't to say that the situation was perfect before, but that because of the way appraisal is licensed, with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, that there were ways to manage the appraisers without this new layer.

What I also need to point out about this education classes was that there was a discussion that if you have both licenses, real estate and appraisal, that you have to be clear that you are one or the other when doing a specific job. So for these purposes, yes, I have the education and an active appraiser's license (trainee) but I do not practice appraisal. What I do find is just like everything else, knowing more is better for my judgement in my real estate life...and so as a real estate broker, I am better informed about the business and can help agents in the firm.

This is just a quick promise that tomorrow morning I will put together thoughts both on my 3 day continuing education appraiser classes in Northern Virginia and also my visit to the auction site, Mt. Holly Steamboat Inn (overlooking the Nomini, right there at the bridge).

Part of the reason for putting this off has to do with it being end of the day...I'm much better at thinking in the morning. Also, I want to check with someone to see if there was any result at the auction.  I left after about 45 minutes after the noon time auction.  The place was open for an hour and a half before the "auction" was to take place and I explored the premises to see what had been repaired or upgraded in the non-restaurant part of the building.

Looking through the rooms I saw that a lot of sweat equity had gone into the place, but also saw a lot that needs to be done. By the time I left no one had been proclaimed the new owner and it looked like the auctioneers were seeking possible buyers and collecting them via the forms that everyone who was participating needed to fill out. So how do you value 1.8 acres of waterfront with a large structure dated to the late 1900s with a lot of work needed? It will be very interesting to see who takes on the responsibility for this location that has seen at least three sets of owners in the 18 years I've been in the area?  Interesting....

Someone I know from other real estate experiences was there at the auction and I'll get the final report on what happened from him. Then I'll put my two cents into the fray.

Beyond that, the appraisal information was quite interesting. Lots of perspective. Some of it confirmation of my thoughts on the market............................ things to consider. Yes, I know this all sounds like fluff, but I do think better in the morning and want to truly offer something in this.

or a question from a client or from someone reading this blog.

It's not as if I've covered all the bases regarding statistics and what is going on here in the Northern Neck. One project I have intended to embark upon, but  haven't quite gotten to is putting together the numbers related to housing starts. It would be interesting to see how many permits were requested in each county say from 2006 through 2008 and then in 2009 to-date. But I haven't done it yet.  Obviously these numbers would be markedly lower for 2009, though the results would be very different for different counties. Through the really active years Westmoreland county had a huge influx of builders and spec houses being built. They were overwhelmed during the  years of 2005 through 2007. Other counties such as Richmond didn't have as many lots to build on and also didn't have the Fredericksburg and Dahlgren job pool to drive the growth. It will be interesting to compile the information when I get to it.

If you have a question, most certainly you can email it to KAM129@aol.com rather than work through this message board. I have never posted a question or a comment to a blog and this is a whole new experience for me to be posting messages, so please help me out with questions.

Given that I don't have a lot to say about real estate at the moment I thought I would comment on some of my favorite places....or ones I have strong relationships with that are in the Northern Neck. First, there is the Kinsale Museum www.kinsalefoundation.org . Through a number of friends I have been involved with the museum for years. They have a newsletter which I desktop publish on a quarterly basis and then they have projects. A couple of years ago we produced a book for their 300th anniversary. Then most recently another book was put together with the newsletters that have been done for at least a dozen years. Since Wanda Woodburn, the editor, is a real pro, these newsletters have a wealth of information about that little village....and it is truly informative, and well done. The museum is open Fridays and Saturdays (Winter hours 10-5), and now they have a gift shop which is evolving and will be open on Saturdays. (This weekend Regina and her sister are putting on a show called "Kitchenalia" and most of the objects--utensils-will be for sale.)

I've had friends from out of the area go to Kinsale in the past and they say, huh....what was that all about? And I'm afraid that often happens when a single destinataion is your target on the Northern Neck. There is none of this walk-around visit a few art galleries, choose from a bunch of restaurant atmosphere. To have a full and interesting day here you tend to need to have a string of locations to go to (this isn't quite true of the area around Kilmarnock, Irvington and Whitestone...there is more to do in closer proximity). As I understand it from Regina who has opened the Gift Shop (in the old ice cream parlor right there at the 90 degree turn in Kinsale) Lynn Norris, the museum director has a list of places to go after you go to the Museum--just ask.

Were I to go to the Museum as a destination and then want to have other experiences that perhaps fit together, I would plan on stopping at Fine Things in Callao, right by the light. There is a range of antiques and collectibles...and there is a lot to choose from. After that I'd head on down to Heathsville and vist at Great Stuff (there on the right after you pass St. Stephens Church ....that has a excellent thrift shop which is well-organized and stocked with good quality merchandise). It is located just past the veterinarian's office on the right. And ultimately a  drive down to Reedville to take in the Fishermens Museum www.rfmuseum.org is a good idea. I don't know the status of Tommy's Restaurant and the Crazy Crab for the fall season, but I bet both of them would be open this weekend. Of course you have the glorious Victorians in Reedville down Main Street, and the Ice Cream store tends to be open right there before the Crazy Crab. The Fishermen's Museum is a first class experience with interesting displays and a gift shop. Often their working boats are tied out back and they may have some sort of work seminar going on. They are having their oyster roast on November 14th and that is always something, a photography show, a boat building workshop, an oyster growing workshop....something. Also keep in mind the event Christmas on Cockrell's Creek which is described on the website...it is quite a house tour!  So although there is quite a bit to do in Reedville, in all probability you couldn't find a full day's activies here and would want to go elsewhere too.

These are just a couple of ideas and obviously they are geared to museums and antique kind of locations and I will focus on golf and marinas in the future. And please, just ask.    --KAM.

As a P.S. next week should be interesting since I'm going to attend the auction ofa local bed and breakfast. This location has had many owners over the course of the 18 years that I've lived here, and this is one more event related to a quirky, but interesting piece of waterfront property. I'll let you know what happens.

Perhaps this will be a bit redundant, but it tell us a little more about the Northern Neck market nonetheless.

Back to the numbers. Earlier today I looked at the sales related to residential housing in the 5 counties since the beginning of the year until the 18th of October. And then I compared 2007, 2008 with 2009. I broke it up into dollar categories of 0-150,000, 150,000 to 300,000, then 300,000 to 500,000 and 500,000 to 700,000 and 700,000 and over.  The final set of figures I compiled was how many properties are on the market now.

Price of home	2007	2008	2009	On market now
$0-150,000	78	63	85	130
$150,000-300,000	177	114	95	290
$300,000-500,000	94	67	48	236
$500,000-700,000	44	36	27	131
$700,000 and above	48	36	12	132
Total	441	315	267	919

Good market? Bad market? Fair market? When you look at these numbers it becomes clear that we haven't had a bad year at all, not given the press on what is going on with the entire United States. It's pretty evident that before the Wall Street and banking meltdown last fall, we had trended down quite significantly from 2007, looking at the 2008 numbers. The most significant change occurred in the higher end sales. The more inexpensive properties have thus far been more prone to foreclosure and so that probably explains why more properties have sold in 2009 at $150,000 or less price point.

High end property. In 2007 there were 92 homes that sold at a price in excess of $500,000 whereas in 2009 there were only 39. And with 263 on the market at prices above $500,000 there is a lot of competition for those rare buyers.

This was just meant to be another snapshot in time to see where things stand. Depending on your property or your interest, this may help you gain some perspective. I hope so.  --KM

Although I have expectations of a quiet winter in regard to real estate sales, I'm waiting for the information to start flowing in. There is just so much  you can do with a month to a month review and also with a perspective related to the last couple of years. I sort of feel as if I am in wait mode.

Fortunately soon I'll attend a crash continuing education class for my appraisal license. A three day "boot camp" in order to get it all done in a series of classes will take me to Northern Virginia. It is always a bit interesting for me, since I tend to be the only full time realtor in a room of appraisers. This event should be more controversial than previous ones since I haven't been to continuing ed since the bottom dropped out of the market last fall.

In an effort to keep busy when things have been quieter I've called a number of out-of-the-area appraisers who participate in this market. Thinking that it would be helpful for them to have someone who knows this market well, having 15 years in it, and so maybe that would give me additional work to do. I got a couple of interested parties, but thus far nothing has panned out.

What was most interesting in this effort was having a conversation with an appraiser with more than 20 years experience who told me that 5 years ago I would have been told that appraisal was a great profession to go into. At this time, though, there was little to recommend the profession because of all of the changes. 

I never quite understood the close relationship between mortgage companies and appraisers. Before I got my license, my idealism, optimism and general sense of fairness told me that appraisers were independent and above the fray. Once I got in I found that there were compromises and my rosy view was somewhat off target. When the changes came this past spring to the way that appraisal assignments were given to appraisers I thought it might be a good thing. Since that time I've found that this change is far more complicated than what it looks on the surface.

My expectation is that the class will reflect a real change in the market. The younger guys (and the class tends to be predominantly men) will not be there.  In the past there was a lot of  energy associated with "desktops", appraisals done for a lesser fee and completed without any direct contact with the house...no drive by, no interior review, nothing but computers and available information. There's no question in my mind that that type of appraisal pretty much no longer exist. The "real appraisals" are having their fees partially eaten up by the intermediary firms who are handing out the assignments on a rotating basis. So if you know the market and are good at what you do and are not particiularly inclined to give up 25 to 50 percent of your fee to a middle man, then you aren't in. In my opinion, the result of this is that a goodly percentage of appraisers who are doing the work are less experienced and more willing to be paid in a way that most of us wouldn't consider reasonable. Interesting....I'll see what the view is from someone who is trying to pay the mortgage by doing appraisals in this business climate.

Even though real estate is slow, I'm glad I'm not doing appraisal for a living right now. There's too much flux. And even without the intermediary and assignment issue, obviously there are fewer appraisals except for "refi"s and those are all rather tricky in this declining? begining to be a sustaining? market.

Recently I read John Bogle's book entitled "Enough" and in it he helped me contemplate just that issue. Granted, because he was the founder and manager of Vanguard Funds for years and years, the book has a decidedly fund-related emphasis and so you need an interest in that to read it in depth. But even if you don't get interested in the nitty-gritty of fund development and choices of how fund fees are structured and why Vanguard stands apart, there is a lot to be gleaned from this book.

At the current time I find that people want to know that they are safe and they are making good choices in real estate. There has been so much that has changed financially in the last year (and realistically the last two) that people's underpinnings have somewhat evaporated and expectations are mixed with anxiety. So how do you make decisions? How do you choose to move on? What justifies making a leap and dropping a price, or choosing to buy something? In a way not much has really changed. We have always had to believe that tomorrow would come and offer us opportunities and there would be something new. We just expected based on years and years of growth in values in housing that what would be new would be better (meaning more) and that it was seemingly unlimited. That isn't the premise any more.

How do you decide? Well if you've been in the market for a while, whether elsewhere and you're thinking about moving here, or having been here and wanting to sell, you need to look at where you stand. If when all is said and done, you have enough, then you are okay. You can make choices. You can move your life forward. You don't have to stay perched on the top of the fence trying to balance and not fall one way or the other. That isn't to say that everyone is in such a place. There are many who have bought in the last couple of years and for specific reasons they need to move on...and they are "under water" meaning they can't cover their outstanding mortgage. These aren't the people where the enough works simply because there isn't enough. They are in a different position. But for the many out there with equity in their homes and enough to move to the next place it may be far better to make hard choices and go and live, than to wait out a tumultuous market. Quality of life and the cost of staying in a place that no longer works for your needs is important and truly has value. And ask your realtor about what you can realistically expect in terms of selling, really know what has or has not sold in your segment.  You might be surprised at the reality. Right now there are segments which are very stagnant, while others are doing much better.

In speaking with a friend recently they said to me, well I understand that nothing is selling. When I told them that approximately 250 homes have sold in the 5 county area thus far this year, that was a real shocker to them. So opportunities exist. People are making hard choices and moving and not getting the big prices of 2006. And people are benefitting and buying in at a reasonable or better-than-reasonable price. There is quite a bit of activity.

So, enough. The introduction to the book recounted a cocktail party conversation between two famous authors. One said to the other, isn't it amazing that our host, a hedge fund manager, makes more in a day than you will in a lifetime with your classic ..... The author of the classic responded, but I have something the hedge fund manager will never have. And the question was, so what is that? And the answer was, I have enough.                     

Do you have enough? Are you ready to accept your life for all the positive attributes and choose the next stage that provides you with the quality of life you are seeking.......because you truly have enough....?

October 4th and time to look at where we stand with numbers of listings and solds, etc. Evaluating the residential market we find that there are 920 properties on the market. That doesn't necessarily mean that the decrease in inventory is due to sales, but more that it is likely that either people are getting ready to extend their listings that expired on the 1st of October or are going to let their expired properties ride until the spring. Nine hundred and twenty properties is a lot of inventory given that thus far we've sold 247 homes in the five counties. If it has taken this long to sell those properties, then this suggests that it would take a little more than three times as long....close to two and a half years, to sell the balance of this inventory...and this assumes no new inventory.

So how have we done with the high end properties? Well nothing has sold for over $1,000,000. The only property listed for over $1,000,000 that has sold went for $950,000 and we can't be sure how it was priced and positioned given that it was in a trust and there may  have had more latitude in the sales price. On the unsold side, there are 50 residences in our five counties that are priced at $1,000,000 or more.

Of the sold properties 170 were priced $300,000 or under. Then 45 were priced at under $500,000, so that shows that only 32 properties in the last 9 months sold for in excess of $500,000. That isn't even 4 per month. That is competition for the purchasing dollars here in the Northern Neck.

Land. Well now there are 1,114 lots for sale with a total of 105 sold. Of the 105 sold, there were 76 that sold for under $200,000. All food for thought. There is certainly activity and a fair amount that has sold, but a lot of inventory sitting there waiting for the right buyer and the right offer. But for a non-cash purchase this is a difficult market given that it is not easy to finance a land purchase at this time. Too much uncertainty for the banks to take a rosy view of a land property in their inventory without enough support for its value.

Properties are moving. People are buying. They are selective and all of the above just supports what we know...this with some statistics to tell  us the "hard facts" in a complicated market. There is room to sell. There is room to buy. The key is knowledge and making good decisions about your own particular situation.

As this market starts to right itself after the shock of last fall there is still considerable fallout. Prices are stabilizing in some segments while in others the prices continue to creep downward with the reality of the numbers of buyers and the (un)availability of credit. This is hard for some to endure, while for others it isn't so bad.

And it is all relative. For those who came here and built or bought 20 years ago, the subsequent years have brought great appreciation to that special home that has housed them and been a good investment. At the moment some owners may not be feeling too good about the market for selling but it just depends on perspective and on finances. If your house is worth two, three or more than four times what you paid for it way back when (and it is paid off), how is this bad? When you bought here did you think that this was a big investment to rival your pension or your stocks and bonds? What was the expectation?

With the fascination on prices spiraling to the moon a couple of years ago, it became standard fare to be discussing the highest priced sale in the neighborhood and gauging ones own house against that. There were all those dollar signs looming and all that expectation of instant wealth, even if you weren't ready to move on (Just like our stock market appreciation that promised a very bright and well-funded future). Now some of that has evaporated and for some it is more than they can handle. They continue to hold out hope for the miracle and that's hard to come by in this economy.

If you need to move on and you have considerable equity in your home then the next place you are moving to probably will be priced more reasonably too, and be a less expensive purchase.  You hear this all the time, but it is hard not to think you can just make that extra bit if you hold on. It is all up to you, but if moving your life to a new place and a new set of experiences is truly your goal, then assess the costs and don't rely on what the house down the street sold for two years ago. It is truly all about you and not about a competition. It is truly your life.

Good morning.... There have been a fair number of you who have taken a look at these messages. There must be opinions about what is going on in the market and itdoesn't matter if you agree or disagree with me, it would be helpful to start a discussion. The way this works is you get to post a message and I get to review it before it is made public. That seems fair enough since the website is the company website and we pay for it. And it isn't as if we can't deal with some conflicting opinions or alternative ways of approaching this situation. This is a very interesting time for the market as a whole, the Northern Neck in more specific and also the way in which real estate is managed as a practice. So please feel free to post messages and I will look at them and most probably post them for the public to see. After all we can all learn from each other. Thank you.

Looking back over the last 14 days, to the last couple of days of August until right now, there have been 77 new residential listings and 28 sold. Of the 28 sold, 21 were priced under $300,000. Looking at those listings the vast majority of them sold in the vicinity of 100 days, with some as few as 40 days and others as many as 180.

Looking at the 7 that sold at above $300,000 there was a much more interesting set of days on market and also discounts off of the original list price. Two sold in less than 200 days and the % off of list price was 9% and 6%. For others in the group there was a maximum of 896 days on maket and the balance of the 7 the remaining 4) had days on market which were 535 days at the least. Percentages that the properties were discounted off the original list price ranged from a low of 22% to a high of 40%. Some serious discounting with this group.

What really shows, though, is that iover time if there is a constant readjustment related to the market and finally acceptance of where it has gone, a property can be sold. Obviously though, it is much better to price the property correctly for the market and not go through the period of high expectations and frustration. The market really is telling us what is possible and what isn't and so we need to price and market properties accordingly.

Land isn't something I've been ignoring, it has just taken me a while to get to it. Obviously it is an important part of the market, but with all the talk related to what is going on in the "housing market" and the knowledge that new housing starts are down to next to nothing, the action related to land had to be slow.

What I looked at was the overall sales numbers for the 5 counties, the four in the Northern Neck and Essex, from the first of the year until the last day in August--today!! The trend tells us that the land market has plummeted from the number of sales in 2006. From 2006 up until 2009 the numbers read, 2006 --328 properties sold, 2007--205, 2008--143 and 2009 only 93. Not a lot of activity this year. Seen a bit differently, there were about 11 lots that sold each month in 2009.

The inventory, though....the inventory. Currently there are 1190 land properties on the market. There are a little more than 12 times the number of lots on the market as have sold in the first 8 months of the year. And because we are in such a complicated time with the appraisers, 52 of the 93 were cash purchases--often at considerably below the asking price. Some properties were on the market for years.

What I mean about a complicated time with the appraisers relates to the fact that the relationship which existed between banks or mortgage companies and appraisers has changed since last fall. A middle man is there to make sure that appraisal assignments are at arm's length and that there is no undue influence. In theory this is a great improvement. In actuality, since it is difficult to appraise our area's property in the best of cases, there is great opportunity for mistakes. And who would want to be an appraiser at this point, trying to put a figure on a property with so many changes happening in the market?

Given all the variables there has been some discussion about appraisers putting prices on properties and being very conservative because there is so much fear and unknown. This has resulted in deals that have fallen through.

Just taking one set of numbers at randome since I broke these down into price categories...there have been 65 properties that have sold for $200,000 or less since January. There are 855 that are on the market in the under $200,000 segment of the market. 

So where does all this leave us in terms of purchasing or selling. Obviously there are people out there who have decided that now is a good time to buy. And that the bargains are sufficiently enticing that taking cash and placing it in property is a good idea. Granted you need to know the market and know what you are looking for. There is no longer this frivilous moment where putting money into something promises a return of 10 or 20 or 50% over the next year or two. That is gone.

There is no longer a feeling that if you live in some urban area or suburb of a big city that your equity is an unending source of spendable cash. That doesn't mean that purchasing on the Northern Neck is a bad idea. Just the opposite actually. If your intention is to be living here or vacationing here long term...at least five years, then taking advantage of this market is an idea to seriously consider. And once you start looking and learning about what is available, you can be selective and take your time for the most part. But once educated, don't assume a good deal will be there forever. There are sellers who, either because they must sell or because they are accepting of the reality of the market, are pricing their properties competitively and they are moving much more quickly.

Knowledge is power and knowing exactly where your property fits in the market in order to sell it is important. And on the other side of the street, having a full array of the properties that are for sale, along with knowledge of what has sold in the last 6 months and how they fit together with your possible purchase is an invaluable tool. Be prepared with your information on what you are interested in and what you are able to spend and take a look. You may be really surprised at the opportunities!

One evening late last week I read the most recent Business Week pretty much cover to cover. The title for the week was a case for optimism. It reviewed where we are in terms of our financial situation/stability of the nation and made a number of points that I really enjoyed.

First, one needs to look at this situation globally and that outside pressures, economic strengths etc. will make a big difference in how the U.S. recovers.  Over the last 20 years there has been much invested in higher education throughout the world. The expanded expertise of India and China (specifically) will cause considerable ripple effects that will assist us. Second, that capitalism is stronger and better when it goes through periods where it cleans house and that we were long overdue. Third, that because there is so much variability in what is going on throughout the world and in various financial systems, there is no way of knowing the exact outcome of all these circumstances. From looking at the above pieces of the puzzle and considering possible outcomes we should realize that there is a case for cautious optimism. There was an arguement that we shouldn't totally miss the boat when things turn around because we have dropped into fearfulness. One of the articles suggested that humans tend to be overly exuberant and optimistic when things are going well, while in bad times we tend to be overly pessimistic and unrealistic about our fears.

There is often discussion about whether or not sales fall off into the fall season or if they actually pick up as a result of all the looking throughout the summer. We won't know about this fall for a while, but looking to see if there was any trend in the Northern Neck is what I checked on this morning.

Again, these are residential properties in the 5 county area. Compared are the October 1st to December 31st unit sales numbers for the years 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. What I found was that there were 195, 147, 116 and 92 sales in that series of years. So 2008 had fewer than 50% the number of sales of house of 2005.

Then you want to look at that number in realtionship to the total units sold for the year. In 2005 there were 606, 2006 there were 751, then 2007 there were 608 and in 2008 a grand total of 444. For the last three years about 20% of the annual number of sales occurred in that 3 month period.

Looking at data to date for 2009 it looks as if we might have sales of about 320 homes by the end of the year. And what that says is that there truly are properties selling. But if you want to sell a home at this time you truly need to be placed number one among your competitors and so being realistic about price is a must.

Returning from a trip to upstate NY I wanted to do something to get back on track and found that this arbitrary slice of time could be compared and reviewed. What I looked at was residential sales in the 5 counties for the period August 1 through August 18. And what I found was fairly interesting, although again, quite predictable.

In 2006 there were 40 homes that sold in that timeframe. In both 2007 and 2008 there were 20. For 2009 there have been 8 sold. And just glancing at the first page of 10 properties from 2006 sales list, there were two homes that sold for over a million dollars. Also, the majority of those ten listed on the first page were priced over $450,000.  (During this 2009 August time frame 55 new residential listings came on as 8 were sold.)

For 2009 the August information shows that for the 8 homes sold, the average days on market were 217. And the average sales price was $233,000. The most expensive home sold for $550,000 and the least for $59,000.

Just a moment in time that confirms much of what we think is going on with the market.

A slightly different perspective: Since the beginning of the year there have been 195 residential sales, with 971 homes currently on the market.

This morning I set out to get a snapshot of what had gone on during a 6 week summer period in 2008 and 2009. Finding that there wasn't enough data to detect any trend, I had to expand it to include 2006 and 2007. Then it started to get a bit more interesting.

Looking at residential sales for those 4 years (July 1 to August 10) there has been a decline in units (number of homes sold) from 76 in 2006, down to 30 in 2009. Most interestingly, but also to be expected, there has been a true decline in those properties selling that were listed at more than $500,000. In both 2006 and 2007 the percentage was right around 25%--so 25% of the all units sold were priced in that higher price category. In 2008 there were roughly 20% and by 2009 the percentage is 10%. That is a huge difference in the higher end properties and their success at selling. You would expect a decline given the market in general, but the change just in the last year is significant.

And with only 30 residential properties selling in 2009 from July 1 to August 10, an additional 147 came on the market. We have a lot of inventory to deal with. The public has a lot to choose from, and sellers need to be aware of where they fit in the picture in order to effectively price and have their home marketed.

As a footnote and a positive reflection on our market, 53 properties were under contract or pending when I looked earlier this week. Although a number of them will not close and I don't have the percentage of pendings available at the moment (I didn't look that up), this is a good healthy number, showing a lot of activity and a lot of buyers committing to a purchase.

Yesterday I started with some preliminary observations about the market and what was going on. What I failed to state is that these are my opinions based on my research and analysis and so they are proprietary. Also, it is my expectation that they are accurate, but anyone can make a mistake.

That being said, I was rather startled by the fact that there had only been one property priced at more than $1,000,000 that had sold in the 5 counties since the beginning of the year. So I checked that and I checked it again. Same result.

You could look at this information and think that it is really negative, but what can actually be seen is that things are working. This despite the terrible scare of last fall with bank failures and Wall Street's freefall, as well as the stagnation that has been caused by the new rules related to mortgage companies and appraisers.The system has not shut down. For banks and appraisers the intermediary company that selects an appraiser in order to keep the transaction at arm's length, can't be knowledgeable about the nuances of appraising property, especially property in the Northern Neck. It is not simple at all.

Changing gears and going back to some of yesterday's information--just out of curiosity I wanted to see how many of the 184 residences that closed since January 1st were priced at $600,000 or more. That number is 15. And the Days on Market range from a low of 38 to a high of 724. And along with those differing days on market you have the percentage differences in the listed and sold price. For the latter instance the sale price was almost 20% less than the listed. For the 38 days on the market house the difference was closer to 1.5%.

For those properties that closed earlier in the year there were greater percentage differences in the list to sold price. Now the market seems to have come to a point where it is around 5 to 7% difference. That says that properties are being priced well and selling.

Looking at land that is active in the 5counties there are just under 1,200 properties. Since the beginning of the year 82 properties have sold--land.  About half of them were $100,000 or less. And all this tells us is that things are moving, but that there is a huge amount of inventory still available. Within the $200,000 to $400,000 range of waterfront sales at least a third of the sales have been cash. But this isn't surprising either. There are good deals to be had and there are people out there looking to accomplish just such a purchase.

So keep in mind either as a buyer or a seller, knowing what is going on in the market and having a good understanding of your position gives you power to act effectively. This is the key to moving forward and completing your sale or purchase. Otherwise a property can languish on the market for years without there being any interest. Information is power.

Given all the discussion related to what is going on in the real estate market and knowing that truly real estate is local, I set out to see if I could make any sense of our present condition on the Northern Neck. These discussions are confined to information on the four counties of the Northern Neck and Essex county.

This message board will have on-going entries, and depending on responses, or our own particular needs, the direction of these queries and results related to trends, prices, etc. may vary.

Yesterday I looked at some sales numbers. Currently in the five counties there are just under 1000 homes for sale. And since January of this year through August 3rd, 184 have sold. Approximately 5.3% of the current inventory has sold in that period. And of what sold 2/3s of it was priced under $300,000.

Doesn't take much to tell us that there is a lot of inventory. And that the inventory is moving slowly. So if you want to sell your home it has to be priced correctly in the market.

Just out of curiosity we looked at how many properties are currently active and listed at the $1,000,000 or more mark. There are 52. Then we look at how many of those have sold in the same period, January 1st through August 3rd 2009 and the total is 1. There has been lots of talk about how the middle priced properties are not selling while the low priced and high priced continue to sell. Perhaps that hasn't been true here.

The day before yesterday I looked at numbers of properties sold in the Northern Neck in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The numbers were interesting and encouraging. If you were to look purely at numbers and not at price, our trends for 2009 aren't particularly limited. There is a downward trend in units sold from 2007 to 2008, but with the exception of January, February and March the numbers are quite stable from 2008 to 2009. The next effort will involved looking at median price for these properties to see what the trend is.

The median price should tell us a lot about what has happened in 2009 given all of the pressures of the market.

--Kathryn