Relocate to Roanoke, Virginia
Why relocate to Roanoke?
- Roanoke is ranked one of the top 5 most livable small cities in the US by America’s Most Livable Communities
- You can buy more house in Roanoke, Virginia (From The Richmond Times Dispatch: “They could have gotten more house for their money in Roanoke”)
- We have over 7 colleges and universities in the region including Roanoke College, Hollins University, Virginia Tech, Radford University as well as the Roanoke Higher Education Center and others
- Our advanced health care system
- Our award-winning school systems (in no particular order)- Roanoke County Schools, Roanoke City Schools, Salem City Schools, Botetourt County Schools, Franklin County Schools, Bedford County Schools
- Parenting magazine chose Roanoke as one of the ten best places to raise a family in the US
- Kiplinger Magazine rated Roanoke as one of the best 5 cities for retirees
- Our low crime rate
- Top notch Roanoke, Virginia real estate agent (Shameless self-promotion!)
Here are some other reasons to relocate to Roanoke. If you have more, add them to the comments!
Update: April 2007 real estate sales in the Roanoke MLS
The sales data for April 2007 is out for the Roanoke real estate market.
Real estate agents sold 426 residential properties and 353 homes pending sale by the last day of April 2007. That is a decrease of fourteen percent over 2006 sales and a fifteen percent decrease from 2005. Some economists have blamed the slower April market on bad weather in February and particularly March.
The graph below shows the Roanoke area real estate market sales data from 2005 through the present:
In the top real estate blogs
Pittsburgh Homes Daily has ranked the 750 top national real estate blogs to watch and my real estate blog made the list! Thanks to Jeremy Hart for pointing out the compilation; I didn’t even know I was on the list until reading Jeremy’s post on his blog making the list too.
To give you an idea of how unique the recognition is, there are thousands of real estate agents in the region and I am one of only 17 real estate blogs in all of Virginia (and the only one in the Roanoke Valley) to make the cut!
Foreclosure closeout coming to Roanoke
If you didn’t already know, I sell a lot of foreclosed homes in Roanoke. Through relationships I have developed with lenders serving the Roanoke Valley, I am one of a few agents in the area who is consistently retained to service these real estate foreclosure opportunities.
I received word from one of my best asset managers today that they will be putting quite a few properties up for auction very soon. What does that mean for the opportunistic foreclosure investor? It means the REO (foreclosing) banks don’t want to have to go to auction, they’d rather sell quickly! I understand they will be accepting even lower offers than before in an attempt to avoid the auction process. The only bad part is the deadline for these deals is May 1st and only applies to properties on the market for a longer period of time!
If you’ve been thinking of investing to flip or rent a foreclosed home in Roanoke, now is the time to give me a call (397-0014) for a complete list of affected homes.
Roanoke real estate stats for March
March was a good real estate month for me personally and the Roanoke Valley MLS as a whole.
Here are the total statistics for residential sales in the Roanoke Valley for March-
- 450 homes sold ( 24% increase over February )
- $87,086,523 total dollar volume sold
- $156,000 median sales price
What real estate bubble?
One of the many things I’ve watched with fascination lately has been the clamoring in the national and local media about the housing market bubble and bust. As an active real estate agent in Roanoke, I haven’t noticed this trend. I’ve heard other agents complain about slowing sales since the end of last summer and the like but it isn’t something I’ve personally noticed. In my opinion, most of the homes still lingering on the market are there because they are priced wrong, have something wrong with them or another nearby home is unattractive to potential buyers.
Rather than just say I think it’s hype in the Roanoke market though, I’d like to present some figures to back it up. Take a look at this chart. The data on this chart was obtained from reputable sources, namely the Virginia Association of REALTORS and the Roanoke Valley Association of REALTORS who in turn collected this data directly from the MLS for the Roanoke Valley. Although not entirely representative of every sale, it is in my opinion the best sample of home sales around.
Disclaimer: I am not a statistician. :)
A few items to point out. The first thing you will note right away is the trend lines do not significantly deviate from each other. The reason? Because the data from year to year in total home sales is so close.
Now, on to a more detailed look. The orange line is data from 2004, the green line from 2005, the yellow line from 2006 and the blue line is data for 2007 through February. Let’s pull a couple of items out to compare and contrast. In December of 2005, there were 412 homes sold in the Roanoke Valley. In December of 2006 there were 381. That’s a difference of 31 homes sold or down about 7 percent. That’s hardly the bust we’ve been hearing about in Roanoke.
But maybe you say sales are always slow in December? Then let’s take a look at the prime selling season. The total home sales in July 2005 was 568. The total a year later in 2006 was 505. That’s a difference of 63 homes. A little more significant but still only down 11 percent.
Well you say…what about currently. Certainly after December home sales must be down. Actually they’re not. Sales are right in line in 2007 where they were in 2006 and higher than they were in all the previous years here.
Where is the dramatic bubble bust in the Roanoke Valley? It doesn’t exist I say. Roanoke hasn’t experienced the dramatic ups or downs the national and local media have been decreeing lately. We’ve remained pretty steady in our home sales from year to year.
So rock on, I’m looking forward to this year’s real estate season. The season? January through December.
2007 Real Estate Market Predictions from NAR
Unusual weather patterns and problems in the subprime lending marketplace are creating challenges in assessing housing market conditions, but a recovery is likely this year, according to the latest forecast by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.
The National Association of REALTORS (NAR) today released revised housing projections for the 2007 real estate market. Below are a few highlights. You can view the entire report here.
- Existing median home prices are expected to rise 1.2 percent this year. “Although existing-home sales will be marginally reduced due to subprime lending restrictions, they should be gradually rising this year and next. However, total sales this year will be fairly close to 2006 because last year started high and ended low.”
- NAR predicts the problems with the sub-prime mortgage-lending marketplace will dampen the market but not spill over into prime market lending. (Sub-prime is for borrowers who have less than perfect credit.)
Google moves to Lenoir, NC
The New York Times has published an article highlighting Google’s announcement it will be opening a server farm in the much embattled area of Lenoir, North Carolina. Lenoir much like our own Southside (Danville, Martinsville) has seen a great slide in furniture manufacturing with companies closing their plants the past few years.
Google says it hopes laid-off furniture workers, most of whom never graduated from high school, will be among the 250 employees at two facilities on the 215-acre site, much of which was once a lumberyard.
The real estate market in Lenoir has already received a boost with properties long on the market now under contract as Google continues to build.
Leveraging the power of the Internet in real estate advertising
One of the more powerful avenues available to real estate agents to advertise themselves but more importantly their seller’s homes is the Internet. Why many agents don’t use this medium to its full potential is crazy.
I advertise all of my Roanoke homes for sale (and all other areas too!) on–
- Yahoo! Classifieds
- oodle
- Trulia
- LiveDeal
- edgeio
- propsmart
- craigslist
- US Condo Exchange
- Real Estate Advisor
- Point2Homes
- The Housing Pages
- Videohomes.com
- And of course this great website which receives 70+ unique visitors per day searching for Roanoke Virginia real estate listings
Keep a tab on the Virginia General Assembly
I ran across a great resource when visiting the Bored Young Professional weblog for the first time. One of the contributors who uses the moniker “JMUDUKE” introduced Richmond Sunlight.
Richmond Sunlight is a fantastic website program by the Virginia Interfaith Center and created by Waldo Jaquith. It features the ability to track all the bills and actions introduced in the current Virginia General Assembly as a whole or by the delegate or senator. They put it best on their website when they say-
Lobby your senator, keep up with your delegate, find out what bills could affect your life and make your voice heard. It’s easy, it’s fast, and it’s fun. Fully buzzword compliant, Richmond Sunlight demystifies the often-baffling process of how a bill becomes law, giving you a say in it, every step of the way. This year’s General Assembly session begins on January 10, and is slated to run through February 24. Legislators are currently pre-filing bills in advance of the session.
JMUDUKE continues with-
This site removes any excuse for being uninformed about what the government of the Commonwealth is doing on your behalf. Websites like Richmond Sunlight and the Virginia Public Access Project bring the process right to your fingertips and allow a user to jump into the legislative fray armed with all the information necessary to influence the process. Here’s hoping that our legislators realize that tools like this make it even easier for the public to watch what they are actually getting done in Richmond.
Here are a few topics you can quickly jump to and view relevant legislation being proposed-
- Virginia Real Estate legislation
- Virginia Eminent Domain legislation
- Virginia Property Tax legislation
- Virginia Education legislation
- Virginia Transportation legislation
Many many kudos to the Virginia Interfaith Center and Waldo Jaquith for putting this great project together!
View of Downtown Roanoke
This is the view from my downtown Roanoke office at on the 10th floor of the Carilion Administrative Services Building (CASB), formerly the old First Union building. I never mentioned before that I have been hired by the Roanoke commercial real estate firm as their director of marketing!
Whether you have a commercial or residential real estate need, contact me. I have the experience and expertise you need.
Roanoke gas
Roanoke homeowners can expect lower gas prices in 2007!
From The Roanoke Times-
Bottlenecks in the nation’s natural-gas pipeline system won’t change the cost of home heating in the Roanoke area this winter, said John Williamson, president of Roanoke Gas and RGC Resources. Essentially, a forecast Williamson offered earlier this year still holds. Bills are likely to be about $50 below last year [emphasis added] for the average residential customer in December and January, he said.
