Over the last few days, I have spoken to some of my financial services buddies. Stock jockeys is what I call them. To a man, (sorry, I don’t know any woman stock brokers), they all complained about how beat up they feel - what a rough 2 months it has been and all the hand holding they have be doing. 

     In light of the 40 % sell off in the equity markets, than the state of Richmond’s Real Estate Market is absolutely bullish. While our unit sales are trailing ’07 by about 30 %, the average sales price is only off 2-3 %. Despite the conventional wisdom that has the general public believing there is NO mortgage money out there, all of my lenders are clamoring with offers. Yesterday, one of my lenders had …. are you ready for this … 4.875 % fixed with 1 point. Yikes! What more do you want? Fabulous rates, a great selection of product, and anxious sellers fearing they’ll have to carry their property until the Spring. I can’t think of a better time to buy.

     Here’s the data comparing November ’08 with November ’07 and the YTD comparisons:    

November 2008 2007
Price Range  # of Sales % of Ttl Sales # of Sales % of Ttl Sales
0 – 99,999 54 11.39% 35 5.04%
100,000 – 199,999 160 33.76% 204 29.40%
200,000 – 299,999 120 25.32% 238 34.29%
300,000 – 399,999 62 13.08% 111 15.99%
400,000 – 499,999 33 6.96% 51 7.36%
500,000 – 599,999 13 2.74% 24 3.46%
600,000 – 699,999 14 2.95% 11 1.59%
700,000 – 799,999 7 1.48% 6 0.86%
800,000 – 899,999 3 0.64% 10 1.44%
900,000 – 999,999 4 0.84% 1 0.14%
1 Million plus 4 0.84% 3 0.43%
Total Sales/Pct. 474 100.00% 694 100.00%
November YTD 2008 2007
Price Range  # of Sales % of Ttl Sales # of Sales % of Ttl Sales
0 – 99,999                431 5.44% 485 4.32%
100,000 – 199,999             2,308 29.11% 3,205 28.52%
200,000 – 299,999             2,696 34.01% 3,829 34.07%
300,000 – 399,999             1,256 15.85% 1,859 16.55%
400,000 – 499,999                551 6.95% 847 7.54%
500,000 – 599,999                271 3.42% 392 3.49%
600,000 – 699,999                156 1.97% 236 2.10%
700,000 – 799,999                  92 1.16% 138 1.23%
800,000 – 899,999                  56 0.71% 93 0.83%
900,000 – 999,999                  26 0.33% 52 0.46%
1 Million plus                  83 1.05% 100 0.89%
Total Sales/Pct. 7,926 100.00% 11,236 100.00%