Richmond real estate is ‘a seller’s market’

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - If you’ve been looking for a home recently, you know that it hasn’t been easy. Houses across the Richmond-metro area are seeing a spike in sales for the past year - namely because of low supply and high demand.

“I feel like we are at a height right now because the inventory is just so low, so we are seeing incredible appreciation numbers,” said Alex Glaser, a real estate agent. “I’ve never seen something like this before.”

In 2020, the average appreciation of a home was 7.5%. This is unprecedented because usually during a good year it falls between 3% to 4%, which is still considered to be high. Glaser says seeing a high appreciation on a seller’s home is becoming increasingly frequent.

“We had one neighbor who sold his home just before COVID really hit, and he sold it for 10% appreciation,” said Glaser. “That’s a lot of money.”

One of the reasons why more people may want to be leaving their homes is due to the pandemic. After spending over a year in quarantine, a large portion of people have noticed what is wrong with their homes and wish to leave. Combine this with low interest rates, and there is an incentive to leave.

“The interest rates are extremely low right now,” said Glaser. “They were down to like 2.6, 2.7, and even now they are in the low three’s which historically is very low.”

Glaser says that this is not unique to just Richmond, and this trend of a ‘seller’s market’ can be seen across the country. Experts are also expecting this lack of inventory to continue well into the near future.

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