I am working with some wonderful buyer clients who are building a home in Old Trail. The building process started when they were out of town, so I started taking pictures and videos for them so that they would be able to see what was happening at the site of their new home.

Watching new construction happen is always a fascinating process. If you’re interested, you can watch the process yourself. If you’re curious about the prices for these new townhomes, I have you covered there, too.

Two issues with the above-linked posts.

1- I always forget to remove my signature from the emails, thus cluttering up the posts and

2 – I really would like to get a new phone with a better camera than my blackberry.

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Charlottesville Tomorrow reports:

While Albemarle County is seeking to increase its industrial and commercial land activity, proposals reviewed as part of the Crozet Master Plan to build a new business park and convert some residential homes to mixed use have been rejected by the Planning Commission.

The one thing I have not yet heard or read is what types of businesses might be in the business park. That would be helpful.

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Is inventory increasing? Looking at single family homes for sale in Crozet, it certainly does look like inventory is increasing. Breaking the Crozet inventory down by te top and bottom pricing quartiles – (see all of this week’s real estate reports)

Attached homes are a bit less predictable. I’m trying to sort out the massive spike, but I’m pretty sure I know what it is (email me if you’re curious).

There is so much more real estate data and reports; sign up to get them all for free. (and spam free)

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Hmmm … are prices flattening in Crozet?

Time will tell.

Inventory continues to climb …

Search for homes for sale in Crozet.

Sign up to receive and analyze all Crozet real estate market reports yourself.

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Download all the Crozet real estate market reports for this week; sign up to receive them yourself.

I’m trying to figure out what happened in February with respect to the spikes ….

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Chart overload.

How many homes are on the market? Townhomes versus single family -

.

See a huge version of this chart.

Median Market Action Index – or – how much activity is there?

Median price per square foot for single family homes in Crozet:

Average Days on Market:

Inventory – or, how many single family homes are on the market?

Sign up to receive – spam-free – Crozet real estate market reports. Delivered to your inbox every two weeks.

“Crozet” as defined by “within the 22932 zip code”

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What’s going on in the Crozet real estate market? For one, Old Trail’s doing well.

(search for homes for sale in Crozet)

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If you’re searching for homes for sale in the Crozet, Virginia area, start by educating yourself about the Crozet real estate market. Once you’ve begun your education, search for homes for sale in Crozet or another place to search for Crozet homes.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

The Newsplex is reporting:

Plans for a proposed gas station in Crozet remain on hold until June after a group of residents file an appeal. No decisions were made on whether plans for the RestoreNStation would move forward during the Albemarle County Planning Commission meeting Tuesday night.
“Under state law, when you appeal it stops any other process that might further a determination,” says Chief of Zoning Ron Higgins.

View Crozet, Virginia, USA in a larger map

Background reading:

- Public Hearing on 20 April
- Gas Station coming to 250 in Crozet
- Close-Knit Free Town is Feeling Squeezed

Learn more at the County of Albemarle’s site:

PROJECT: SP200900034 RE-STORE’N STATION PROPOSED: Use of more than 400 gallons of groundwater per site-acre per day for convenience store. ZONING CATEGORY/GENERAL USAGE: HC, Highway Commercial – retail sales and service uses; and residential use by special use permit (15 units/ acre); EC Entrance Corridor – Overlay to protect properties of historic, architectural or cultural significance from visual impacts of development along routes of tourist access SECTION: 24.2.2.13, Uses permitted by right, not served by public water, involving water consumption exceeding four hundred (400) gallons per site acre per day. Uses permitted by right, not served by public sewer, involving anticipated discharge of sewage other than domestic wastes. COMPREHENSIVE PLAN LAND USE/DENSITY: Rural Areas – preserve and protect agricultural, forestal, open space, and natural, historic and scenic resources/ density ( .5 unit/ acre in development lots) ENTRANCE CORRIDOR: Yes LOCATION: US 250 (Rockfish Gap Turnpike) approximately 1,600 feet (0.3 miles) west of Western Albemarle High School TAX MAP/PARCEL: Tax Map 55B Parcel 1 MAGISTERIAL DISTRICT: Whitehall  

By the way, I am marketing a great house on Free Town Lane.

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Public Hearing for Proposed Gas Station/Convenience Store on Route 250 – Before the Albemarle County Planning Commission

There will be a public hearing for the proposed RestoreNStation gas station/convenience store looking to be located on Route 250 on April 20 at 6 p.m. at the Downtown County Office Building, Lane Auditorium, on the 2nd floor.

Please be aware that sometimes agendas for these meetings can change, so check this website for any possible changes. (check here). This e-mail list will be updated if there are any changes to the agenda for the evening.

The public hearing will give citizens a chance to express their opinions about the proposed RestoreNStation gas station/convenience store, which, if approved, will be the second largest gas station in the county. The proposed project is on a lot near the Brownsville Market and the high school, and in front of the community known as Freetown. The proposed gas station/convenience store will service cars and diesel semi-trucks, both from local traffic and traffic on Interstate 64. There are several issues being reviewed by the County with relation to this proposed gas station/convenience store, some of which have been taken up by the Architectural Review Board. A VDOT traffic study is currently completed in order to fulfill a legal requirement for the project, as the applicant projects that the project will generate at least 2,500 additional trips on Route 250 per day- 25% more trips than are currently recorded on that section of Route 250. This increased tra ffic projection currently does not include diesel trucks coming from the interstate.

This public hearing will be on the water aspects of the project. For background, you can read the Crozet Gazette article about the project from its January issue, if you haven’t already. It can be found online at:

The applicant for this project is looking to build on land that is zoned Highway Commercial, (from the old pre-Master Planning days). However, the project is not connected to water and sewer, and the County Zoning Administrator has determined that the applicant needs a special use permit, given the size of the proposed development and its water consumption. Any applicant needs to get a Special Use Permit to build when the County determines that you are going to pull more than 400 gallons of water per site acre per day for a project. The site is approximately 4 acres in size, which would give the applicant an allotment of 1,600 gallons of water per day to pull from the ground, (4 acres x 400 gallons per site acre per day).

The County has determined that the project will use more than the allotted 1,600 gallons per day. So, the applicant has asked for a Special Use Permit to use more than their water allotment. Although the applicant maintains that they won?t use their full allotment of water, he did not make an appeal to the County on this matter, so the Special Use Permit requirement will be addressed at this Planning Commission meeting.

Public Hearing for RestoreNStation – April 20 at 6 p.m. at the Downtown County Office Building, Lane Auditorium, on the 2nd floor.

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Home sales in Crozet* in March 2010 were double those of March 2009! (okay, they went from four to nine, but we’ll take whatever good news we can find). I also expect that that “nine” will increase by a few as transactions are closed out over the next few days.

Even more heartening is the fact that properties placed under contract in Crozet are double last year as well.

It seems that 2004 was a boom year. Mind you, the above data are preliminary, but they show an uptick. The real test is going to come in the second half of 2010.As always, if you have any questions about the Crozet real estate market, please contact me. 434-242-7140

To see the spreadsheet with the above data, click here.

If you want to receive real estate market updates for the Crozet area, please sign up here. This is a completely separate subscription than the main RealCrozetVA.com feed.

For these purposes, I am defining Crozet as Brownsville and Crozet Elementary school districts.

Search for homes for sale in Crozet.

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Crozet has traditionally been regarded as having high-quality public schools; as such we benefit from the market created by our schools.

Do better schools increase house prices? From my perspective as a Realtor in the Crozet area, the answer is yes. I have never had buyers tell me that they wanted to live in a bad school district; but virtually every single one – whether they have kids or not – wants to be in a good school district. Frankly, I don’t need metrics or analysis or data to support my conclusion; I know that people buying homes in Charlottesville and Albemarle want good schools.

All the data in the world isn’t going to change my opinion, either as a Realtor or as a parent, that good, quality schools matter – to our kids and to our housing values.

From The Impact of School Characteristics on House Prices: Chicago 1987-1991

For many people, an important consideration when buying a house is the quality of the local public schools. There is a general perception that, all else equal, houses in better school districts will cost more.
…

Our results indicate that individuals pay attention to both per-pupil expenditures and test scores when deciding where to locate. However, when purchasing a home, individuals do appear to consider the current test performance of students in the local school rather than the extent to which a community’s schools contribute to a cohort’s test performance.

So what? What happens to Albemarle County home values if:

1 – Albemarle County schools cannot trim the fat sufficiently and
2 – They have to make so many dramatic cuts?

This is an email sent by the Albemarle County Parents’ Council with five attachments that will help you get acclimated … before the public hearing tonight at 6:30.

Brian Wheeler has presented a post with hard numbers – numbers that put into context what an increase in property taxes would mean for you – something that has been mostly lacking from most discussions I have read.

The Albemarle County Public Schools budget is now facing catastrophic cuts if we do not find new sources of revenue. This is the result of the national economy, declining sales taxes, declining property values, a proposal to lower taxes collected in Albemarle, and significant state funding cuts for education.

… In an effort to get my head around the numbers, I have prepared the attached spreadsheet which evaluates (to the best of my ability with the data available), the impact of the different budget scenarios and what different property tax rate increases necessary to close the funding gap.

• http://www.wheeleronboard.com/docs/20100214-analysis-wheeler.pdf (Acrobat PDF); or

• http://www.wheeleronboard.com/docs/20100214-analysis-wheeler.xls (Excel spreadsheet)

If you download the Excel spreadsheet, you can even plug in your own home assessments from 2009 and 2010 to measure the personal impact of adjusting the tax rate. At this point in the process, I don’t like trying to address a budget challenge by manipulating the tax rate, but I think the public deserves some factual information about the different scenarios and how that might impact their personal pocketbooks. At this point, the burden has been put on local government and it has few revenue tools at its disposal. We all need to understand the cost-benefit of the status quo, the current tax rate, which in reality is a tax reduction.

…

In the analysis I have provided, here is the bottom line for the median household (2009 sales price) in Albemarle.

• With the worst case state funding scenario (new reductions of $9 million), a property tax rate of 86.5 cents would fund Dr. Moran’s budget with only Tier 1 cuts implemented. That rate would increase ANNUAL tax payments by $272.08 for the median priced home when compared to 2009.

• In the best case state funding scenario, a property tax rate of 81.9 cents would balance the budget and increase ANNUAL tax payments by $146.19 for the median priced home when compared to 2009.

This discussion at the Daily Progress was pretty informative.

* Thank you to Deedstreet for pointing me to the below-referenced study.

The quality of local public schools is widely believed to be a key determinant of housing prices.1 However, the strength of the consensus is puzzling, given the formidable empirical challenges facing any homeowner or empirical researcher seeking to answer the question carefully.2 First, good schools usually come bundled with other neighborhood qualities– such as proximity to employment, shopping and recreational conveniences and neighborhood peers. Because the homebuyers who enjoy (and can afford) such amenities tend to congregate together, it is difficult to isolate the effect of schools from the effect of these other traits that accompany good schools. Second, it is difficult to disentangle the valuation of the schools themselves (school facilities, curriculum, teachers and principals) from the valuation of the quality of peers available at the school. Common measures of school quality (such as test scores) typically reflect both the quality of the education being offered and the characteristics of the incoming students.3 It is unclear whether homebuyers are paying for quality schools or quality classmates
for their children.

Google Rocks.

Personally, I’d feel a lot better about all of this if I trusted the government. (I’m surprised you made it to the bottom of the post)

Originally posted at the Charlottesville real estate blog, RealCentralVA.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Download a copy of the Nest Report, which is what we believe to be the best, most “comprehensive and transparent analysis of the residential real estate market in Charlottesville, Albemarle and surrounding counties, prepared quarterly by Nest Realty Group.”

It’s a PDF, and it is a good, insightful and thorough analysis of what is happening in the broader Charlottesville real estate market:

2010 will be an interesting year to watch. Employment numbers continue to creep higher throughout the country and the state; national debt and deficit levels are of a constant concern; the foreclosures and short sales will increase; and yet there are positive signs that our market is making a stride toward normalcy. Number of transactions increased from Q2 to Q3. On a seasonally adjusted rate, sales increased from Q3 to Q4 by more than 10.8%. Charlottesville remains lowest of all Virginia for unemployment rates. And while statewide and nationwide unemployment numbers are up, Charlottesville has fallen for four straight months (Aug thru Nov) to 5.1%, which is lower than we have seen since December of 2008.

The big “what-if” for 2010 will be keeping an eye on Short Sales and Foreclosures across Central Virginia. We will go into this in more detail, but the basic issue is that Short Sales are up all across our state, and Charlottesville is not completely immune. Foreclosures are up significantly in Central Virginia, but are still way behind rates in other parts of the state. If that trend ends, and Central Virginia catches up with Richmond and Northern Virginia, we will see a significant erosion on prices throughout this year. As it stands, signs point to another 6-9 months of price drops followed by some stabilization, but no sign of increases in the next 18-24 months.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

I’d love any feedback on these charts. As you can tell, they are a work in progress as the system is still processing historical data.

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I got an interesting question the other day – -

How often do homes like this turn over/sell in Crozet? “This” being about 2000 square feet, at least three bedrooms and at least two bathrooms.

Looking at the question through the lens of its expected/possible value:

Looking at it by square footage …

Basically, if you sold your house last year in Crozet* and it fit one of these two criteria, you were pretty lucky.

* When doing analyses or home searches for “Crozet” I use Crozet Elementary and Brownsville Elementary school districts as my geographical limiter. The 22932 Zip Code, while it is the Crozet zip code, is a bit too inaccurate for my purposes.

If you’re thinking about selling your home in Crozet, this is a good place to start.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Occasionally I post about real estate on RealCrozetVA.

I couldn’t help posting about this home for sale in Old Trail. It’s a short sale – $725,000 for nearly 4,700 finished square feet and nearly 3,300 unfinished square feet.

6611 Woodbourne Lane, Crozet, Virginia.

* I’m a Realtor in Crozet, after all.

Disclosure: This house is marketed by my firm, Nest Realty Group.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

I’ll be releasing a Crozet-focused report shortly, but my real estate brokerage, Nest Realty, just published our 3rd Quarter Charlottesville area real estate market report

Download it here.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

It’s really not that far from home to Crozet Elementary, and while I wish there were sidewalks the entire way, it’s a pretty good little walk. Better yet, my small one and I stopped at Mudhouse on the way back home …

Personally, I’m grateful to live in such a walkable place.

Do you walk your kids to school?

Even better, I had my camera with me and took a few shots along the way:

** If you take pictures in or of Crozet, upload them to flickr and tag them with “crozet” – then they will be displayed in the slideshow on the homepage of RealCrozetVA.**

View Larger Map

** I’m even more grateful that my chosen career as a Realtor allows me the schedule flexibility to spend such time with my kids **

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I wrote this earlier this week.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

For those of you not aware, I recently joined Nest Realty. One of our core principles is that we intend to analyze – and write about – the Crozet and Charlottesville real estate markets more intensively than has previously been seen. For example:

However, 2009 may be a different story. With the town home and attached home market in Crozet slowing significantly, Waylands Grant hasn’t been immune to the slowdown. In fact, since January of 2008, there have been 10 different attached homes in the neighborhood that have been listed and either were withdrawn or expired. In that same time, only 2 have sold (one of which was a foreclosure) and 1 is currently under contract.   

Until the market stabilizes and the amenities promised in Crozet (like the Crozet Library, the Downtown Crozet Streetscape Project, and the Jarmans Gap Road Expansion) actually start to get closer to coming to fruition, I expect that the attached home and town home market in Crozet will continue to suffer.

Read the whole thing at the Nest.

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This isn’t the standard “Open House” – it’s a community event to showcase what I believe to be a very well-priced home (that I’m marketing) in Parkside Village.

Additionally (and hopefully) if you stop by, you’ll be among the first to see Nest’s new real estate signs. (assuming they come in Friday) … bring friends who might be interested in moving to or within Crozet, come with questions about the Crozet real estate market … Saturday’s supposed to be gorgeous and there’s a great porch!

Stop by 3009 Indigo Road Saturday between noon and four or Sunday between three and five. If you have questions, please let me know.

Additionally (and hopefully) if you stop by, you’ll be among the first to see Nest’s new real estate signs. (assuming they come in Friday)

* Don’t worry – this type of post won’t become a frequent occurence, I’m just trying new things.

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One of the single greatest limitations for buyers (or curious homeowners/renters) when searching for homes in Crozet using other home search tools is simple – you can’t search Brownsville and Crozet Elementary school districts in the same search. I have waited for years to be able to offer this type of tool.

As we all (probably) know, the two elementary school districts in Crozet are Brownsville and Crozet; now if you’re searching for a home in Crozet you can go to my nifty new Crozet Home Search page -

As before, my offer remains – if you want updates for your neighborhood, specifically for under contract or sold properties, please let me know.
I will never, ever, ever spam you. The retribution from karma would be too severe.

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