ROANOKE, Va. – The local real estate market continues to be a seller’s market, according to experts.
MKB Realtor Thomas Fellers is preparing to get another house up on the market in the coming weeks.
Fellers has been kept busy over the past three years selling and buying homes, as the demand has been huge since the pandemic. He said that’s starting to slow down just a bit.
“In our market today, we have 1.4 months of supply of housing,” Fellers said. “Which reflects a seller’s market, and compare that to a year earlier, it was less than one month.”
Homeowner Chase Paterno is preparing to sell his Roanoke home and move to Charleston. He says he’s noticed a trend as he searches for his next home.
“Inventory is low, just like inventory is low here,” Paterno said. “We’re taking our time, and taking it slow, and we need to make sure that we get the right house for our family.”
Fellers said the number of people moving into and out of Roanoke is steady.
“We’re not seeing maybe the scales tip one way or the other in any dramatic fashion,” Fellers said.
He said the still short supply is due to undersupplied housing from the 2008 crisis, the pandemic causing people to reevaluate what they’re looking for in a home, and the low cost to borrow money.
Virginia Tech Real Estate Professor Jonathan Everett said now recent high interest rates are impacting the market.
“I would ask the question, you know can I comfortably afford this home?” Everett said. “Can I live with the financial outcome regardless of what interest rates do?”
Both experts said it’s important to take your time and do research when you’re choosing your next home.
“Just because anything that was on the market sold over the last three years,” Fellers said. “Doesn’t mean that that happens to be the case for every property on this market right this second, but it is still a competitive environment for buyers.”