2012 Was A Very Good Year For Hampton Roads Real Estate

I post a number of real estate sales statistics on this website throughout the year, Yesterday I recapped the Williamsburg VA market with stats from the local Williamsburg Area Association of Realtors. (WAAR)

Today we will cover the remainder of Hampton Roads with data from the Real Estate Information Network (REIN). This includes the cities and counties of Carrolton,  Chesapeake,Gloucester, Hampton, Isle of Wight, Portsmouth , Newport News Norfolk, Poquoson, Smithfield, , Suffolk, Surry,  Va Beach, Yorktown  and York County Virginia

The final numbers are in and the Hampton Roads real estate market ended the year with encouraging statistics that indicate 2012 was a year of strengthening and recovery. Although inventory levels are the lowest since 2005, pending and settled sales posted healthy increases for a second year in a row, and the median sales price is slowly but steadily moving up.

The number  homes listed for sale in December 2012 is down 13.36% when measured against December 2011. This brings the region down to a 5.91 month’s supply of inventory. Six months is considered a normal real estate market. Chesapeake’s active residential active listings are down the most at 22.94% year-over-year, to a 4.96 month’s supply of inventory, and Virginia Beach is down 21.45% to a 4.18 month’s supply. This is the lowest number of active residential listings since May 2006 when there were 9,448 residential homes for sale.

Residential pending sales (homes under contract) were up 8.55% year-over-year for December 2012. Only two of the region’s seven major cities (Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton and Newport News) did not experience an uptick in pending sales; Norfolk and Chesapeake with 15.05% and 3.23% decreases respectively. The number of residential pending sales increased the most for Suffolk, up 21.74% over December 2011.

We did see a dip in closed sales in December of 5.03% when compared to the same month last year. A dip in settled sales is not uncommon for the month of December, as homeowners often prefer to concentrate on the holidays instead of moving residences. All of the region’s major cities experienced this down-turn, except for Portsmouth and Norfolk with gains of 3.70% and 2.72% respectively. Suffolk saw the most dramatic decline in December’s settled sales with 14.42% year-over-year. Of all of December’s closed sales, 16.83% were for new construction. The median sales price for all residential homes sold in December 2012 was $200,000, up 1.27% from $197,500 in December 2011.

Year-to-date summaries for 2012 showed promising trends when compared to the prior year. For all of 2012, 34,746 new listings were added into REIN’s database (all property types). This is down 6% when compared to 2011 and is the lowest since 2003. Of the region’s seven major cities, Newport News experienced the largest dip in the number of new listings, down 12.54% from 2011, while Suffolk was the only city to see an increase, up 1.05% for 2012. For the year as a whole, 12.71% (4,416) of these new listings were for new construction, suggesting that new home activity is picking up.

In all of 2012, 20,174 residential listings went under contract, up 9.27% from last year. All of the region’s major cities underwent increases, except for Portsmouth (down 1.77%) and Newport News (down .72%). Suffolk felt the most significant increase in total pending sales, up 20.80% over 2011. There were 19,518 residential closed home sales throughout all of 2012, up 7.35% from the previous year. Suffolk benefited with the largest gain over 2011, an increase of 12.75% in settled sales. Newport News and Portsmouth were the only two major cities to face declines, each of which was down less than 1% from 2011. The median residential settled sales price for 2012 is $199,900, up 2.51% from $195,000 last year. In 2012, residential new construction closings (2,663 units) were up 12.65% from 2,364 units in 2011. Unlike the median price for all residential settled sales, the median sales price for residential new construction closings in 2012 is down 1.5% ($274,000 vs. $276,908).

The share of foreclosures and shorts sales,  known as distressed sales, has been inching upward in South Hampton Roads since August. The percentage of existing home sales that were distressed in December broke the 30 percent threshold for the first time since April. This does seem to happen for some reason at the end of each year..