As we get some warm and sunny days and anticipate the end of winter, we at Kelly Blanchard Real Estate are gearing up for spring and another exciting year of buying and selling homes! As you probably know, the real estate market has been even more interesting and competitive than usual for the past couple of years. In this sellers’ market, homes in Richmond have sold in record time, and buyers have needed to be well-poised to make strong offers to get the homes they loved.

Because the economy remains strong and interest rates have stayed low, it looks like these trends will continue in 2020 in our beloved city.  For this reason, we are working to be knowledgeable about this market and want to help you, our clients, understand what is happening in and around Richmond.

We LOVE Richmond, and hope you do too. It turns out we are not the only ones though! The rate of growth in our city and surrounding counties is astounding. Depending on what you read, the population growth in our region is between one and five percent. This does not sound like such a big number until you do the math. With a population of 1.3 million people, even on the low end at one percent, that is 13,000 new people each year, which breaks down to over a thousand people per month moving into our city and surrounding areas. One percent growth can sound like a pretty reasonable if not dismissable statistic, but when looked at in light of the real estate market here, it helps explain why houses are picked off the market as fast as they are put on!

Another specifically “Richmond” trend is the move east. If you look at a map of Richmond’s development, you will see that it has historically moved from the fall line of the James River downtown primarily west and north up the river and out Midlothian Turnpike, Hull Street, Broad Street, and I95. Over the years, growth has not moved east at near the same pace as it has in the other directions, but that is starting to change. Back in the days when the cleanest air and water were upwind and upstream, moving west made a lot of sense. However, the impact of pollution today isn’t nearly the same as it was then, and thus the need to continually go west isn’t nearly as strong. What is strong is the quest to find reasonably priced housing close to urban Richmond!

As the prices for entry to the Fan District, Museum District, West End, and even new home communities in Midlothian and Moseley are reaching into the middle to upper $400’s, buyers are looking for housing that is more affordable and closer to the city, bringing incredible growth to some eastern parts of the city, specifically North Church Hill, Manchester, and neighborhoods east of Chamberlayne between Laburnum and Brookland Parkway.

As you can see, the Richmond market is an interesting one, a bit surprising and not necessarily easy to understand. So as you are considering your options, we are ready, willing, and equipped to help you understand and navigate this competitive and changing market to make the best decisions for you and your family.