Brick’s Blog

     What I thought was would be a single post has morphed into an 3 part installment. Earlier this week, I mentioned I would post a 3 year camparison of home sales for the West End. Since “my West End” is composed of three different zones (i.e., 20, 22 & 34) used by the Central Virginia Regional Multiple Listing Service (i.e., CVRMLS) to delineate these areas, this first installment will cover Zone 20 or what I refer to as the “West End City.”

     Whenever I start to work with a new buyer who is “looking” in the West End, my first question is “what do you consider the West End?”. My reason for this is simple. The west directional for streets in Richmond starts at Foushee Street. Say what? Foushee, where’s that? Foushee Street is a block east of the Jefferson Hotel and well east of Belvidere. Not exactly what you would consider the West End, now is it?

     Zone 20 used by CVRMLS begins west of the beltline (i.e., Route 195) and extends west to the Henrico County Line. It is bounded on the north by the City of Richmond line, which basically runs along Broad Street until Staples Mill and then follows Monument Avenue until west of Libbie when Patterson becomes the northern boundary. The south boundary is the James River. Despite its higher taxes and weaker schools than its Henrico counterparts, Zone 20 has always been considered a highly desirable area due to its proximity to downtown and other drawing features of the City of Richmond.

     Now let’s take a look at the West End City market over the last few years. One of the most immediate things you will notice is the drop in million dollar sales. Goochland and Zone 20 have always had the majority of million dollar sales each year. Through May, ’09 is lagging both ’08 and ’07.  Just as in the metro area at large, ’09 unit sales in Zone 20 are lagging ’07 sales by just over 50 % and ’08 sales by 24 %, but these numbers are higher than the metro area. This is due mostly to affordability. Whereas, the sales activity below $300,000 for the metro area to date in ’09 is 76 %, in ’08 68 % and in ’07 70%, only 52 % of the ’09 sales in Zone 20 are below in $300,000. In ’08, the below $300,000 percentage was 42 % and in ’07 was 41 %. Anyway, here are the numbers. Read ‘em and weep.

     Tomorrow I’ll take a look at Zone 22 – West End County.