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By SHARON KILPATRICK
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
The mood in the local real estate and building industries ranges from near despair to extremely cautious optimism.
James Leake of Sperryville Realty said, “It’s dead as a doornail. I’m in my 19th year in the business, and this is the worst time I’ve ever seen. I don’t see anything picking up yet.”
On the other hand, Peggy Clark of Rappahannock Realty was more optimistic. “People are starting to come out more,” she said. “The phones are ringing again.”
So far this hasn’t resulted in many sales. More people are looking, but few are buying, she said. “They’re looking for small parcels of land for building lots. Houses are not moving,” she added.
She said she was fortunate to start in real estate in 1972, “when it was really moving.” Since then she has seen several downturns, “It goes in and out of these tunnels,” she said. “To make a living, you have to work very hard.”
“We’re as hopeful as we can be that it’s about to turn around,” she said. “It won’t be fast. This has been very hard for the people who are trying to sell.”
Eileen Day said, “We’re in an age of realism right now.”
She said her firm had a flurry of contracts in February, “but then everybody crawled back into a hole.”
She says a few people are looking now, but not many contracts are being written, and some fall through because they depend on the buyer selling another property or because of problems with financing.
“One thing that is making it harder is financing,” she said. “The banks say they have money to lend, but once you get a buyer in touch with a mortgager, the rules change. They keep moving the goalposts.”
She said one buyer was just days from closing when the bank said it would need appraisals on three comparable properties within a mile of the property to be sold. “In Rappahannock you usually can’t find one comparable property within a mile,” she said. “That’s really stretching everyone’s credibility.”
“It all goes back to the S&L crisis,” she added. “They made a lot of mistakes, and now the consumer, who had nothing to do with it, is hav
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