Constrained inventory is likely to keep sales prices rising across the Virginia homes market through the summer, a slight majority of real-estate professionals believe.
As part of its monthly “flash survey” of market sentiment conducted online May 23-June 1, the Virginia Realtors trade group asked its members where they thought prices would be three months into the future.
A total of 502 Realtors responded to the survey, including 328 who had participated in a transaction in the preceding month. Just over half (52%) said they expected prices in their markets to rise over the next quarter, while 19 percent thought they would fall and 25 percent believed they would be flat.
The remainder were unsure.
That split seems indicative of other forward-looking responses in the monthly report, available at virginiarealtors.org (under “Research”):
• Asked to gauge the level of homebuyer activity in their markets in late summer (three months into the future), the result among all respondents was a score of 51 on a 0-to-100 scale. That’s up from 45 in April but lower than average scores in the January-February-March data.
• Asked to project seller sentiment when late summer arrives, data from the most recent report worked out to a score of 37 on the same 0-to-100 scale, up slightly from 35 a month before and relatively in line with results throughout 2024 so far.
As for current conditions:
• The statewide Buyer Activity Index stood at 51 on a 0-to-100 scale, up from 45 a month before, with 29 percent of respondents saying buyer activity in their markets was high or very high and 26 percent saying it was low or very low.
• The statewide Seller Activity Index for the month was 26, up from 23 a month before, with 8 percent of respondents saying market activity was high/very high and 56 percent saying it was low/very low.
