Virginia Beach-based The Breeden Co. intends to build a $27 million mixed-use development, Duplex Station on Hermitage, on the former Cobb Lumber site near Richmond‘s Scott’s Addition neighborhood and less than a mile from The Diamond ballpark, the company announced Monday.
Located at 2300 Hermitage Road, the project is slated to include 142 apartments and 24,000 square feet of commercial space, which will serve as the new corporate headquarters of the company’s Breeden Construction division. Construction is set to begin in early 2023 and Breeden Construction will serve as general contractor.
The 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom apartments will feature open floor plans, granite countertops, vinyl plank flooring and washers and dryers. Amenities in the community include a pool, fitness center, rooftop lounge, electric car charging stations and bicycle storage.
Plans for the area surrounding The Diamond have been a hot topic in Richmond recently, as the city has been marketing the area for redevelopment.
A city flyer soliciting development proposals for the area — dubbed the Diamond District — calls for the demolishment of the 36-year-old Diamond, with a new multipurpose stadium to be erected in its place. Also listed as part of the city’s vision for the property: a more pedestrian-friendly street grid, parking garages, multiple public parks and new buildings providing employment, retail and mixed-income housing, based on the city’s Richmond 300 master plan, which was approved earlier this year by Richmond City Council.
Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer represented the seller, LNR Property, in the $2 million sale of part of 260 Boush Street, a multiuse commercial and residential building in downtown Norfolk. Tidewater Community College is the purchaser of the 37,065-square-foot commercial space on the first floor, plus 99 parking spaces on the second floor of the 15-story building. The property is in downtown Norfolk with frontage along Boush Street, College Place and Tazewell Street. Tidewater Community College acquired the asset on Oct. 22. The transaction was completed by Rob Wright in Thalhimer’s Virginia Beach office with an assist from Eric Robison and Catharine Spangler of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Capital Markets Group.
Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer announced the sale of 14300 Sommerville Court, located in Sommerville Office Park in Chesterfield County. Mitchell Scott Holdings LLC purchased the 11,904-square-foot flex building from Moseby Enterprises LLC for $1.85 million. Graham Stoneburner and Annie O’Connor of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer handled the sale negotiations on behalf of the seller.
Capital City Real Estate closed on the Commodore Apartments land for $1.74 million to construct 173 units. The property is located at 15 W. 7th St. in Richmond. Garrison Gore brokered the deal along with Charles Wentworth, Hank Hankins and Victoria Pickett, all from Colliers.
Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer announced the sale of 4101 Plantation Road in Roanoke. Self Storage Stewardship Inc. purchased the 2.53-acre property, which includes a gas station, car wash and self-storage units, from VRH LLC for $1,070,000 as an investment. Barry Ward and Price Gutshall of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer handled the sale negotiations on behalf of the seller.
Send any real estate transactions or news to Associate Editor Robyn Sidersky at [email protected].
Dr. Mohit Nanda, a board-certified ophthalmologist affiliated with Virginia Retina Consultants, has more than 20 years of experience. He will lead the group, which represents more than 30,000 physicians, physicians-in-training, physicians’ assistants and medical students.
Nanda was elected at the society’s annual meeting on Oct. 23.
In his inaugural speech at the meeting, Nanda spoke about the importance of mental health and wellness for physicians, PAs and all health care workers.
“As we have learned over the last 18 months, dealing with unprecedented challenges has taken on a new meaning. So, how can we promote the mission of our society and keep Virginia the best place to practice medicine? Let us come together to deal directly with adversity on a personal and professional level. We know that physicians, PAs, medical students and other health care workers deal with an extraordinary level of stress. Let us as a society develop ways to help each other stay well so that we may help others get well. Let us reach out to our colleagues as friends to create a stronger bond that can help us when things get tougher. Whether we are involved in direct patient care, administration, research or education, we can only help others when we ourselves are strong. I believe the Medical Society of Virginia can be and will be our partner in this journey,” he said in a statement.
Nanda graduated from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. He received his opthamology training at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and subspecialty training in the management of retinal diseases at Rush Presbyterian Hospital. He practiced in California for 13 years and then moved his family to Virginia, where he has lived for more than 15 years.
He is a member of the Albemarle County Medical Society and the American Medical Association and was a 1978 Presidential Scholar.
Chu will guide Virginia ABC‘s transformative efforts to ensure priorities and objectives are met, overseeing project management and business transformation, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion, according to a news release from the state ABC.
Chu has been a partner at Thought Logic Consulting in Richmond for the past several years. She was part of the people and organizational change practice at Ernst & Young’s EY Advisory Services. She also consulted for Deloitte Consulting and Global Lead Management Consulting.
She earned her master’s degree in comparative and regional studies from American University’s School of International Service.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, LaToya Jordan regularly missed small moments in her children’s lives — like seeing her young son getting off the bus each day. She commuted to downtown Richmond or to a client site and arrived home after her children.
The state agency where she works allowed telecommuting one day a week, and her schedule was flexible, but 90% of her work week was spent in the office. After the pandemic, though, her work schedule changed dramatically, and more than 18 months later, she still isn’t fully back in the office.
Jordan, the deputy auditor for human capital and operations for the Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts, was working from home about four days each week as of late September.
Like so many other workplaces across Virginia and the nation, her agency shifted fully to remote work when the pandemic began in March 2020 and has not fully transitioned back to working onsite. And there’s a good chance it will never return to its pre-pandemic model.
“I think what we’re transitioning to is going to be more of a hybrid situation,” Jordan says. “We appreciate that we have the technology to support us being able to work primarily remotely, but we also realize the benefit of in-person collaborating as well.”
“I think we will continue to have way more flexibility than we did before the pandemic,” she says.
(L to R) Hantzmon Wiebel LLP employees Edward J. Schmitz, Jennifer S. Lehman, Leslie Lloyd and Rebecca Burtram participate in a video meeting in Charlottesville. Photo by Norm Shafer
‘The future of work will be flexible’
Flexibility will be the name of the game when looking ahead to post-pandemic work environments. It’s what many workers say they want moving forward.
In the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants’ latest annual survey of current economic conditions and expectations, conducted in partnership with Virginia Business, 78% of respondents said that work flexibility is the top trait displayed by businesses that are recovering well from the pandemic.
Forty percent of survey respondents expect to work a hybrid schedule during the next six months and 53% expect they will be working remotely for the next six months. Looking out a year, 37% say they expect a mix of hybrid, still mostly remote, and about 30% say hybrid, but mostly onsite.
The survey, completed by Virginia CPAs in public accounting, private industry, government and education, confirms that not knowing what the future holds is one of the key cruxes companies are facing in planning for doing business in the post-pandemic world.
“I think one of my lessons learned is, you can’t be too set in your ways or set in your plans,” says VSCPA President and CEO Stephanie Peters. “You have to have this ability to plan what you can but know that there’s going to be disruption, and that’s just happening so much more quickly as we’ve seen over the past 12 to 18 months.”
This summer, as it appeared that the world might be getting back to normal, the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19 spurred a resurgence in coronavirus cases, halting or delaying post-Labor Day plans that many businesses had for returning to the office.
Hantzmon Wiebel LLP, a Charlottesville accounting and financial advisory firm with about 100 employees, had to use an “emergency remote access plan” and turn on a dime in March 2020 to make sure everyone had the ability to work from home. “We ended up going down to less than 20 to 25% of people in the building during the height of the pandemic,” says Jennifer Lehman, the firm’s CEO. “We implemented technology like crazy.”
In June 2020, Hantzmon Wiebel employees started edging back toward the office, but some requested permission to work mostly remotely on a permanent basis. Prior to the pandemic, the firm had been making plans to move to a smaller office, but it plans to downsize even more, with remote work remaining an option.
Companies large and small have been adapting to meet the needs and concerns of their employees, including child care needs and worries about potentially infecting their children who aren’t yet old enough to be vaccinated.
Grant Thornton LLP, a Chicago-based global accounting corporation with about 1,200 employees in Arlington, had a seamless transition to remote work amid the pandemic and has promised its 8,500 national employees that their work schedules will be flexible.
“Our work does assume that we’re mobile and moving to respond to our clients’ needs, and post-pandemic we’ve really continued that.” says Greg Wallig, managing principal for Grant Thornton’s Washington, D.C., region office in Arlington. “Our view is that the future of work will be flexible and so will we. Our employees are empowered to work in whatever way best suits the needs of the client, and if that’s remote and meets their comfort levels and the client’s satisfaction, we’re happy to support that.”
Since the pandemic began, Grant Thornton has taken measures to assist employees, including monthly internet subsidies, reimbursing for personal protective equipment, doubling the firm’s child care subsidies and subsidizing food-delivery service memberships. The firm also gave each employee a $1,000 stipend to help defray personal expenses.
“We sought really to help employees cover the additional costs that we imagined they were incurring based on the response to the pandemic,” Wallig says.
The measures have helped employee retention — Grant Thornton didn’t lose any more employees during the pandemic than it did in pre-pandemic times, Wallig notes.
“That’s really wonderful when you consider this pandemic working model has gone on 18 months now,” he says. “A year and a half is a long period of time, and I’m really thankful that the combination of both benefits that we offered our employees and just the atmosphere that we created … has continued to give people a sense of connection. They understand the job market is hot right now and there are opportunities out there, but they choose to stay with Grant Thornton because of the culture.”
Shifting work culture
Improving the remote work experience is something 41% of VSCPA survey respondents say their companies plan to do.
DXC Technology Co., an IT services company, is moving its corporate headquarters from Tysons to Ashburn in November and shrinking its footprint to reflect a virtual-first mentality. Employees can work from anywhere and will use the office as more of a communal space than an everyday work environment. What started as a multiyear plan was essentially accelerated overnight, says DXC Chief Operating Officer Chris Drumgoole.
DXC has “dramatically increased” its investment in technology, he says. “The office should really be more about a place to come together, collaborate [and] get together because human interaction is still really important and we think it’s there, but it doesn’t have to be every day, 9 to 5, to plug in.”
Technology is just one component of DXC’s changing work model, Drumgoole says. It’s really a cultural and procedural change enabled by technology.
Some companies say working remotely has built deeper ties among colleagues.
“I think the one thing that has kind of stood out to me over the past year and a half is the supporting nature of people,” says Jordan. “I think that because we’ve had to come together and make some decisions and make sure we’re collaborating to get the work done, it’s created stronger connections in some regards as well.”
Jordan has had her own challenges. One time she was in the middle of a meeting when her infant son was crying. Her older son did his best to soothe the baby, but ultimately, Jordan had to take over. She rocked the baby while participating in the meeting. The experience made her more compassionate as a leader, she says.
“While the pandemic has been challenging, I think that it’s also brought forth some benefit from a work-life balance perspective, as well.”
A greater emphasis on work-life balance is one of the factors that has contributed to what economists are calling “the Great Resignation,” an ongoing pandemic-era trend of people leaving their jobs in search of better working conditions and quality of life. In turn, such voluntary separations are contributing to severe labor shortages across virtually every industry.
To prevent turnover, it’s necessary that employees feel secure, says Vinod Agarwal, deputy director of the Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy at Old Dominion University.
One of the forces contributing to the labor shortage is a reluctance to return to workplaces for fear of getting sick, he says. The risk has to be worth it, and that’s a decision made beyond what a person brings home in pay.
“The only way to solve this problem is having to pay high wages and thinking differently than we have been doing historically” he says. “Workers are not just workers; they are part of a family. We have to learn how to take care of them. Some [employers] are providing day care services [or] bonuses to employees. … It is not just higher wages; it is how we treat our employees. That is a lesson to be learned from the pandemic.”
Many workers are not going back to minimum wage positions they deem too risky, says Maggie Cowell, an associate professor of urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech who specializes in economic development. But that leaves companies in a lurch, too.
About 85% of respondents to the VSCPA’s annual economic expectations survey reported that labor shortages pose a significant or moderate risk to their companies or industries. The same percentage of respondents, 85%, are concerned about rising labor costs.
Even after expanded unemployment benefits have ended, workers largely are not returning to jobs they previously held, she says, adding that “the length of time that we are watching this play out seems pretty pronounced.”
And when workers leave and find better pay or working conditions, it tends to have a “contagious” effect, inspiring their former co-workers to also resign, she adds. “Given the amount of [job] opportunities for people who are looking … you can’t blame them.”
According to a survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business in mid-September, 27% of small employers are currently experiencing significant staffing shortages and another 18% are experiencing moderate staffing shortages.
This has employers brainstorming ways to make their companies more appealing to potential hires.
DXC, which has 130,000 employees worldwide, including several hundred in Arlington and the Washington, D.C., region, is hoping to use its virtual-first mindset as a differentiator when recruiting.
Lehman, with Hantzmon Wiebel in Charlottesville, says her firm is considering hiring experienced candidates from out of state for remote work. Despite the pandemic and changes in work models, though, the core values at Lehman’s firm have not changed, she says.
“What’s really, really important during the pandemic is focusing on culture, focusing on your people, focusing on making sure that you were taking care of what was important before, which … for us … was our clients and our team members,” Lehman says, “… and I think that’s what made it so it was OK.”
When Kristy Johnson moved to Halifax County from Georgia in 2008, the community welcomed her family with open arms, she says.
Now she has the opportunity to return the favor as the new executive director of the county’s Industrial Development Authority.
Johnson’s no stranger to the organization. She’s worked for the IDA since 2009 in various roles, starting as operations manager, then in marketing and business development before moving up the ladder to deputy director. Prior to that, she was mayor of the town of Halifax and served on several local chamber of commerce committees.
Johnson became the IDA’s executive director in mid-September, replacing Brian Brown, who was terminated by the IDA board in October 2020 after a little more than a year on the job. A few months after the firing, IDA board member Rick Harrell said, “We made that change because we saw an operational weakness. It wasn’t any … malfeasance of any kind.”
That’s not a problem he sees in Johnson. “She is strong in the operational area,” says Harrell. “One of the things I know she’s going to concentrate on is existing business.”
Johnson sees the major focus of the IDA as supporting the area’s existing businesses, promoting retention and expansion. Her role in that? “Getting to visit our existing industries and hear their challenges and opportunities and support them in their endeavors, and improving our community that way,” she says.
Johnson would like to be more targeted about recruiting outside industries that would complement existing industry, for example, needed suppliers or services. She plans to do that by meeting with existing industry plant managers, HR managers and others on a regular basis. The biggest challenge she’s heard so far from businesses coming out of the pandemic is re-establishing a feeling of safety for employees who may have left the workforce.
In her new role, she has done a lot of listening. And at the end of the day, she says, the IDA needs to re-establish itself as a partner “not just in words, but in action.
“My goal is for us to continue to do good work and those relationships will begin to repair themselves and our efforts will become evident that we mean what we say when we say we want to be a community partner and support and try to recover from this turbulent period.”
Lars Friedriszik has been named general manager of the 410-room hotel, which is managed by White Lodging and owned by Apple Hospitality REIT Inc.
Friedriszik was previously the assistant general manager at the hotel in 2018, but left to serve in other management roles at White Lodge properties. He served as the assistant general manager at the Teaneck Marriott at Glenpointe in Teaneck, New Jersey, before arriving at the downtown Richmond Marriott as assistant general manager in 2018. Friedriszik served as the general manager of the Courtyard & Residence Inn Richmond downtown since 2019 before returning to the Richmond Marriott, which completed an extensive multimillion-dollar renovation in December. The hotel also opened a comfort food restaurant in September.
Friedriszik earned his degree in hospitality operations management from George Brown College in Toronto and a certificate in culinary arts from Yukon College, in Yukon, Canada. He also holds certificates in hotel management, restaurant review management and leadership for the hospitality profession from the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology in Ireland and eCornell, the online education program of Cornell University.
The 18-story hotel is connected to the Greater Richmond Convention Center via skywalk and has more than 26,000 square feet of event space.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy S.A., a Spanish wind turbine company, will invest $200 million to build the first U.S. offshore wind turbine blade manufacturing facility in Portsmouth, creating 310 jobs, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced Monday from the Port of Virginia’s Portsmouth Marine Terminal.
Siemens Gamesa is a partner in Dominion Energy’s 2.6-gigawatt, $7.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project. Expected to be the nation’s largest offshore wind farm when completed in 2026, the project will see about 180 wind turbines erected in federal waters 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast, with construction beginning in 2024. At its peak, the wind farm is expected to generate enough energy to power 660,000 homes.
Siemens Gamesa plans to invest more than $80 million of the project’s estimated $200 million budget to erect buildings and equipment at an 80-acre site it will lease at Portsmouth Marine Terminal. When completed, the facility will be capable of producing blades for 100 turbines per year, a company executive said.
About 50 of the 310 jobs being created by the turbine blade manufacturing operation will be service jobs to support the CVOW wind farm. Dominion is leasing 72 acres at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal to use as a staging and preassembly area for the project’s massive foundations and turbines.
The facility will be the first offshore wind turbine blade manufacturing facility in the United States.
“Virginians want renewable energy, our employers want it and Virginia is delivering it,” Northam said. “The commonwealth is joining these leading companies to create the most important clean energy partnership in the United States. This is good news for energy customers, the union workers who will bring this project to life and our business partners. Make no mistake: Virginia is building a new industry in renewable energy, with more new jobs to follow, and that’s good news for our country.”
The General Assembly passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) into law in 2020, requiring Dominion to generate all electricity produced for consumption in Virginia from renewable energy sources with zero carbon emissions by 2045.
Officials gathered at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal for Monday’s announcement included U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, who spoke about how Virginia’s offshore wind project lines up with President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power in the United States by 2030. She also noted the economic impact of shifting to clean energy.
“[Biden] sees the opportunity that is presented in this clean energy economy globally,” she said. “It is [a] $23 trillion market. … [and] America is going to get a big chunk of that. We’re not going to stand by and watch our economic competitors claim that market and that means manufacturing and that means generating clean energy and that means all kinds of energy, whether it’s nuclear or wind or solar or geothermal or hydropower.”
Grandholm said the announcement Monday was symbolic for the entire country. It’s also monumental for Hampton Roads’ and Virginia’s economy.
“People are talking about long-term effects but Americans tend to think about long-term effects in one year, five years, 10 years; we’re talking about decades if not generations, generational changes for the entire area, the entire commonwealth,” said Brian Ball, Virginia’s secretary of commerce and trade.
He and Northam said it’s a major step in diversifying the state’s economy.
“We have always been dependent on the military and government contracting and we always will be, but something we recognized four years ago is we really needed to diversify our economy,” Northam said. “We did that by bringing in companies like Amazon, Micron, Microsoft, Facebook. … Dominion Energy is doing that by bringing in Siemens Gamesa.”
Siemens Gamesa and the project’s boosters also see it as a major step in creating a supply chain hub in Hampton Roads for other wind farm projects up and down the East Coast.
“We are hopeful that as states, including Virginia, commit to offshore wind, this facility will continue to be able to supply those projects that are located in other states,” said Steve Dayney, Siemens Gamesa’s head of Offshore North America. “What is important is that there is long-term certainty for investment of hundreds of millions of dollars. … We need that long-term certainty that the demand for the product is going to be there.That’s critically important.”
Dayney said Siemens Gamesa chose Portsmouth for the site because there’s deepwater access, no overhead obstructions, plenty of room to build and the infrastructure is largely in place, compared with other locations.
Dominion Energy Chair, President and CEO Robert M. Blue said Dominion chose Siemens Gamesa as a partner in the project because the company built the Dominion offshore wind project’s first two pilot wind turbines, which went online in 2020, and “they’re a leader in this industry.”
Having the manufacturing facility will help speed development of Dominion’s planned 180-turbine wind farm, Blue said, but he added that starting a new supply chain also takes time and investment.
“When you’re starting a new supply chain, obviously there’s time associated with building a new factory, but creating jobs here, the economic activity here is going to pay great dividends for Hampton Roads and for Virginia,” he said. “And this is an industry that’s just starting in this country, so getting early pieces of the supply chain here increases the chances that Virginia will get more of the supply chain, which will be more jobs, and then ultimately, as we’ve all learned recently, having a local supply chain can be a real advantage.”
The residential real estate market frenzy in Virginia may be slowing to more normal conditions, the chief economist with Virginia Realtors said in a new report out this week.
For the first time in more than a year, sales activity slowed in September, compared with a year ago.
Last month, there were 13,079 home sales in Virginia, down 2% from September 2020, when sales were surging.
“While sales are down year-over-year, it’s important to remember that the market last September was unusually active,” Virginia Realtors Chief Economist Lisa Sturtevant said in a statement. “Slower sales activity does indicate a cooling in the market, but it also suggests that we’re seeing more typical seasonality in the market.”
It’s the first year-over-year dip since June 2020 and reflects a cooldown around the state.
“One signal that a return to seasonality is underway is that total sales in Virginia declined 9.4% between August and September this year, which is a typical end-of-summer slowdown,” the report says. “Between 2015 and 2019, sales fell an average of 15.6% between August and September. During the 2020 surge, sales activity was relatively strong between the summer and fall transition, inching down just 2.9% from August to September last year.”
Year-to-date sales are up so far this year, up 16.2% compared to the same period in 2020. Growth can be seen in markets stretching from Hampton Roads to the Richmond metro area, Northern Virginia and most of Southwest Virginia.
In the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia Realtors Vice President Katrina Smith, broker and owner of Winchester-based RE/MAX Synergy, said her area reflects what is happening around the state. “We were so frenzied for the last eight to 12 months, it was unlike any market I’ve seen in 16 years,” she said.
The median price for Virginia homes in September was $350,000, about $20,000 higher than a year ago, or a 6.1% increase, according to the report.
Smith said anything that came on the market around that price point in the past year had back-to-back showings.
“The moment it came on the market, it was booked for days,” she said. “When you are a seller, that was great that you had so much to choose from.”
It was harder for buyers, though. She wrote eight different offers for a buyer before one was accepted, she recalled. It was hard on not just the buyers, but the agents too, she added.
The September figures are a return to somewhat more normal market patterns, though sales continue to far outpace pre-pandemic levels, up 27.1% from two years ago, according to the report.
In the Richmond area, Beth Dalton, a managing broker with Long & Foster and the president of Virginia Realtors, said they are still seeing multiple-offer scenarios and competitive offers at that. In spring through July, buyers were waiving everything, in many cases, just to seal the deal, she said. They would offer creative incentives, such as letting the seller leave things in the house they didn’t want to move. They nicknamed this trend “the Dumpster clause.”
This month, things are improving, and it’s “less frenzy-like,” she said. It’s still busy, with many transactions, but more like what the fall is usually like, she said.
Prices are still rising, but the growth has slowed, according to the report. Prices are up in most regions around the state. The largest median sales growth was in parts of Southwest Virginia, the Northern Neck and Chesapeake Bay areas, and parts of Southern Virginia.
Through the first nine months of 2021, the median sales price statewide is up 11.1% from a year ago, or a $35,000 increase. The statewide average sold-to-list ratio in September was 100.6%, which means on average, homes in Virginia closed at a price that was 0.6% higher than the seller’s asking price.
Smith, in Winchester, said not only were offers over asking, but buyers would bring extra cash to the table. But that’s tapered off some and isn’t happening as frequently.
The frenzy led Ramey to expanding her business. She’s hired a new leasing coordinator to help with photography and staging. She estimates her company has sold about 50% more than last year.
In the Charlottesville area, Denise Ramey, a broker with Long & Foster and president-elect of Virginia Realtors, said she has a house listed at $600,000 and expected six to eight offers on the house, and that it would probably sell at 20% above asking price, at a minimum.
About half of all homes sold in Virginia in September were priced between $200,001 and $400,000, making it the largest segment in the market and nearly one out of four sold for between $400,001 and $600.000, according to the report. Price levels have been trending up, and homes priced above $600,000 accounted for more sales than homes priced below $200,000. In September 2020, it was the opposite.
But price is not the only thing sellers are looking at, she noted. When there are multiple offers to choose from, she assembles a spreadsheet for the seller to review, with factors such as contingencies, home inspections and financing terms. Even the closing date is something buyers are using to gain an advantage.
While the number of transactions slowed, higher prices pushed the sold dollar volume above last year. More than $5.6 billion of volume sold through September, up 3.4% from last year, an increase of $200 million statewide. But in September, it was down 10.4% from August, which Realtors say is expected for this time of year.
Homes are selling an average of 23 days faster, which is two weeks faster than a year ago. Ramey, in the Charlottesville area, said she will often list a house on a Wednesday, hold an open house on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and review offers the following Monday.
Lack of inventory has been the biggest driver behind the price wars and multiple offers, she said. Now, inventory is growing slowly, a trend she expects to continue through the winter.
The fastest inventory growth is primarily in northern markets, including Northern Virginia, Winchester and the Fredericksburg area, but there are also in increases Hampton Roads, Southwest Virginia, areas of Central Virginia and parts of the Richmond metro area.
Virginia’s housing market is showing signs of falling back into typical seasonal patterns, according to the report. But it will still be a seller’s market for a while, Realtors are telling clients.
“Personally, I’m kind of looking forward to the market that we are moving into,” Smith said. “I think it’s a healthier market.”
New York-based Kushner Cos. has purchased the 300-unit Lumen luxury apartment complex in Hampton for $82 million, Berkadia Institutional Solutions announced Thursday.
Located at 2100 N. Campus Parkway near the Hampton Roads Center business park, the Lumen complex was sold by a partnership formed by Virginia Beach-based real estate development company L.M. Sandler & Sons and North Carolina-based Craig Davis Properties Inc. The deal closed on Sept. 27.
The complex includes studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with in-unit washers and dryers, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.
Drew White of Berkadia D.C. Metro and Carter Wood of Berkadia Norfolk represented the seller.
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