CHRA closes on purchase of Dogwood Housing and dozens of other June 2023 Charlottesville property transactions

The 30th in a series of monthly summaries of real property transfers in the city

Welcome to another edition of my monthly look at property transactions in Charlottesville produced as a premium piece of content on Charlottesville Community Engagement. The 550 or so paid subscribers to this newsletter get a first look, but then this will be posted on Information Charlottesville next Friday. Take a look at the ones from January 2021 to May 2023 here! 

The main point of this exercise is to get more eyes on the property market at a time when the City of Charlottesville is contemplating major changes to the zoning code to allow for more residential development. It has now been nearly two years since the new Comprehensive Plan paved the way for these new rules. The adopted and proposed changes from the Cville Plans Together initiative will eventually be reflected in the property market if they have not already. 

After every item, I list the property’s current designation in the draft zoning code as well as the property’s acreage. The ones in this edition come from the interactive map included in the draft Development Code that was released on August 15. Check out my story that breaks it down if you’ve not already. 

Another reason why I do this is to develop a sense over time of how accurate real property assessments are each year. Assessors in Virginia must base their assessment on the fair market sales in an area. This monthly update is intended to serve as a snapshot of what’s happening. It’s just one look at one metric. No analysis is intended but conversation is welcome and encouraged.

In each blurb, I’ll track the position of each transaction above or below the current year’s assessment. I’ll make comparisons to previous years in order to demonstrate just how transactions continue to trend toward higher and higher sales prices. Except when they don’t.

Each transaction tells a story, and this summary is not exhaustive. But the more I do this, the more interesting it becomes.