Are some neighborhoods faring better than others in Stafford County?

August 2008

Everyone is aware that the real estate market in Stafford has tanked much as it has in most areas of Northern Virginia and the country.  But are all things equal?  Have some neighborhoods fared better than others in terms of the numbers of homes sold, median prices on homes that have sold, and the average number of days it takes to sell?  The answer to that question is yes and here’s some data to prove it.

First, let’s look at the number of homes sold.  For the purposes of this study, the data retrieved[1] is limited to single-family homes.  Overall county data is provided as a baseline for comparative purposes and some of the largest subdivisions have been chosen to provide that comparison.  The attached file contains the data and charts necessary to view the data.

As you can see from the chart Number of Units Sold, some subdivisions are faring much better than the county as a whole, most notably Park Ridge, while other subdivisions are faring significantly worse (Stafford Lakes).   Of course, this is just one measure of strength/weakness in assessing the state of a local market so I’ve looked at a couple of others as well. 

Prices are certainly an important consideration and we can do the same type of comparison (Median Price chart).  Prices don’t show as great a deviation from the county baseline but there’s still a significant enough deviation in some of the subdivisions to cause concern. 

Likewise, we can also look at the average number of days on the market it takes from the time a home is initially listed until it’s sold (Average DOMP chart).  Here we see somewhat conflicting data in that Stafford Lakes has the shortest turnaround time of any of other the subdivisions and significantly below the baseline.  That can be explained when you consider that only a small number of homes have been sold and the median price has dropped more than the average meaning that the few homes that sold did so relatively quickly because they were aggressively priced. 

So what does all this mean?  The most important thing to consider as a buyer in this market is where to find the best value to insure that your investment is on solid ground.  Make sure your agent can assess market conditions using neighborhood-specific data to compare to the baseline for the market area.  As a seller, make sure your agent can help you understand the dynamics of the local market so you can be sure that you’re pricing your home correctly based on current market conditions.  If you resist facing the reality of your local market you risk being one of the many unsold homes used for these statistics.