Better Than Elsewhere!: Northern Virginia Real Estate Market

If you've ever shopped at Marshall's, Target, Walmart, or any other discount department store, you'll definitely have seen the price tags that compare their prices to those found "elsewhere."  Whether the actual "elsewhere" price as marked is the true picture is debatable, but it's meant to make you feel good about your purchase, knowing that your shopping smart.

So plunking down $52 for that Clairborne dress shirt doesn't feel so bad, when you know that "elsewhere" it retails for $117!

When looking at the statistics for the overall Northern Virginia real estate market in July 2010, much of the picture doesn't look so great:

These numbers take into account Arlington County, Alexandria City, Fairfax County, Fairfax City, and Falls Church City.

The Bad News:  Compared to July 2009, July Sale $ Volume is Down 10.12%, Total number of Sales is down by 19.05%.  Similarly, compared to the previous month (June 2010), dollar volume is down 20.53% and total sales are down by 22.62%.

The Good News:  Prices are up significantly from July 2009, and up slightly from June 2010.  Home are selling significantly faster than in July 2009 and slightly slower than in June 2010.

How does this compare to "Elsewhere"?

The National Association of Realtors reports July 2010 existing-home sales dropped 27.2 percent from June and were down 25.5 percent from a year earlier. Existing-home sales last month fell to the lowest level in more than a decade.

So, overall, Northern Virginia is not so bad considering what's going on elsewhere.