Well, 2008 is over. I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves, but we ended the year with a 29 % decline in units sold. Considering the economic uncertainty across the globe and the bombardment of negative news we received all year, you have to admire the resiliency of the Richmond market. I sincerely believe we are beginning to eat into some of our excess inventory that has plagued the market since late 2007. The Richmond real estate market is closer to equilibrium when our inventory levels are closer to 9,000 units. Currently, we are at upper 11,000 range. This is down from almost 14,000 units offered in May 2008.

     I now have 3 years of my statistical data covering the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. As time permits, I hope to draw some comparisons of the years. Since 2005 was the heights of Richmond’s real estate market, these comparisons should prove interesting! Here are the ’07 and ’08 numbers:

December 2008 2007
Price Range  # of Sales % of Ttl Sales # of Sales % of Ttl Sales
0 – 99,999 49 9.07% 28 3.94%
100,000 – 199,999 162 30.00% 214 30.10%
200,000 – 299,999 164 30.37% 217 30.52%
300,000 – 399,999 84 15.56% 120 16.88%
400,000 – 499,999 36 6.67% 62 8.72%
500,000 – 599,999 24 4.44% 28 3.94%
600,000 – 699,999 7 1.30% 12 1.69%
700,000 – 799,999 3 0.56% 9 1.27%
800,000 – 899,999 5 0.93% 6 0.84%
900,000 – 999,999 1 0.19% 4 0.56%
1 Million plus 5 0.93% 11 1.55%
Total Sales/Pct. 540 100.00% 711 100.00%
Year to Year 2008 2007
Price Range  # of Sales % of Ttl Sales # of Sales % of Ttl Sales % Change
0 – 99,999                480 5.67% 513 4.32% 6.43%
100,000 – 199,999             2,470 29.18% 3,419 28.52% 27.76%
200,000 – 299,999             2,860 33.78% 4,046 34.07% 29.31%
300,000 – 399,999             1,340 15.83% 1,979 16.55% 32.29%
400,000 – 499,999                587 6.93% 909 7.54% 0.83%
500,000 – 599,999                295 3.48% 420 3.49% 29.76%
600,000 – 699,999                163 1.93% 248 2.10% 34.27%
700,000 – 799,999                  95 1.12% 147 1.23% 0.95%
800,000 – 899,999                  61 0.72% 99 0.83% 38.38%
900,000 – 999,999                  27 0.32% 56 0.46% 51.79%
1 Million plus                  88 1.04% 111 0.89% 20.72%
Total Sales/Pct. 8,466 100.00% 11,947 100.00% 29.14%