Remember last April when we posted about how dire the local real estate market was, and that we had to really search for positive trends occurring here in Harrisonburg? Well, we are happy to report that April 2012 shown much brighter in terms of real estate sales, contracts, and sales prices!

As an aside: my parents visited us recently from Washington State, and they asked about the Harrisonburg market. I told them (happily!) that its been stabilizing and that we’re seeing positive trends this year. They were quite impressed with that, because very recently, they had heard the Seattle market literally JUST saw an uptick in prices last month — for the first time in years!

Now back to our April Market Report…

[Click any image to view larger version]

Sales rose 7.6% over last month, and 2.3% over last year! Every single percentage change in the year-to-date column is a positive number. (Okay, so a positive days on market stat isn’t great, but everything else is fabulous.) Sales prices are increasing steadily — median sales prices have increased by over 4% YTD — and home values are stabilizing as well.

Above is a look at the month-to-month numbers for residential properties sold in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, and Massanutten. April experienced the largest number of sales so far this year, and we look forward to seeing more in the coming months as we enter the summer season!

Properties are going under contract faster this year compared to last (an average of 20 days sooner, to be exact), and more buyers are active in the market as well, with an increase of 19.4% in contracts just this year! The median list prices for these homes is higher than last year, too, by 5.8%. This bodes well for the sales that will be occurring in the next few months.

The number of contracts is almost always higher than the number of sales, simply due to the fact that all contracts do not sell. Majority do, though, so the increase in contracts means we’ll likely see an increase in sales in the next few months as well. As you can see in the chart above, we’ve seen an upward trend in contracts each month this year!

Lastly, this chart highlights the sales versus list prices over the past 12 months. As you can see, the average sold/list percentage is the highest its been since October 2011, at about 96%. Basically, buyers are getting a 4% average discount from the list prices of homes so far this year.

Overall, we are content with the way our local real estate market is shaping up in 2012. April was a strong month for sales and contracts, and we’re excited about more bright spots to come!

Stay tuned for more Market Trends, right here on Harrisonblog…