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Hi everyone! I’m Jeremy Caleb Johnson from Johnson & Burge at Long & Foster Real Estate. This is your Johnson & Burge Market Update for the week ending November 11, 2022. Happy Veterans’ Day.

Let’s talk a little more about supply and demand. Specifically, new homes. So many buyers love new construction, but it isn’t always easy to come by. Have you noticed in recent years that it just doesn’t seem like there’s as many new homes on the market anymore?

It’s actually true! When I started my real estate career in 2004, just over 3,400 new homes were sold in South Hampton Roads. Since 2004, the number of new homes sold has declined and in recent years has hovered in the 2,400 range. At present, we have sold 1,846 new homes in South Hampton Roads, and we’re on track to close about 2,400 by year’s end.

Nationally, we’ve been running at a new homes deficit since the Great Recession, which hit a lot of builders hard. Some of those builders never came back to the marketplace. According to reporting from Builder magazine this past September, approximately 12.3 million households were formed in the U.S. in recent years, but just 7 million new single-family homes were built. We need more than 5 million new homes built right now just to keep up with existing demand. That’s a lot of new homes!

We see the same impact here in Coastal Virginia. A quick and easy fix to the housing crunch is to build more high-density housing—and have you noticed all the new apartment complexes going up? But even that is not sustainable. Not everyone wants to live in apartments. The American Dream is still a house with a yard—but maybe not the minivan.

So let’s look at what this means for us here in Coastal Virginia—because all real estate is local, right?

As our population continues to grow and local home builders have been averaging about 2,400 new homes per year in the last 5-6 years, and that steadiness is good. But our local builders cannot keep up with the demand.

This is good news for home sellers who may be worried that their homes won’t sell. Buyers are re-thinking where they live. They’re re-thinking how they live. And they’re re-thinking their desire for new construction. We here at Johnson & Burge have seen first-hand with our own clients this shift in thinking, and we’re constantly working towards a win-win for buyers and sellers.

The bottom line: Sellers, your home will sell. Buyers, you will find a home. The market looks a little different than it did last year, but we are your guides through this and every market condition.

Let us help you make a great move. Contact us on our socials, point your browser to johnsonandburge.com, or sign up for our newsletter.

I’m Jeremy Caleb Johnson, and this has been your Johnson & Burge Market Update. And, oh by the way, we’re never too busy for your referrals!