Two New High Schools

September 4 sees two brand new High Schools opening their doors to Warren County students, who may for once be looking forward to a return to school after the summer :). . . Both schools are completely new buildings with the latest technology, and with new playing fields. They will intially take students in grades 8 to 12.

Warren County High School, still home of the Wildcats, is moving from its present 67 year-old site, to Westminster Drive on the east side of Front Royal. It will serve broadly the north east, east, and south east areas of the County (Hilda J Barbour & Leslie Fox Keyser Elementary Schools, plus the route 522 South corridor from Ressie Jeffries ES).

Skyline High School has been built on a green field site off route 340 just south of Front Royal. SHS will be home to the Hawks, and will serve broadly the north, west, & south of the County, drawing from A.S. Rhodes ES, E.W. Morrison ES, and Ressie Jefferies ES (apart from the route 522 South corridor).

The School Board have produced a useful map showing the school zones for the new high schools and the elementary schools. You can view it here (you can zoom in for more detail).

The two new high schools mark the completion of Phase I of Warren County's 10 year school plan. Phase II will first see the old high school site at Luray Avenue refurbished and reopened as the middle school in 2008, then the current middle school on West 15th Street remodeled. The result in 2009 will be two fully refurbished middle schools taking grades 6 to 8, and feeding directly into their respective high schools for grades 9 to 12.

Phase III of the 10 year plan will see a new elementary school built, further details yet to be finalized.

Market Update & Mortgage Turmoil

Back in March I wrote that we had a quiet market. Now we are getting well through the summer, it is time to take a step back and review things. And it's not a pretty picture for sellers. Hopes of steady improvement have long since evaporated, and we are looking at a market which has already "peaked" for the summer, even though that peak was way below last year's levels.

All summer the number of homes on the market in Warren County has been hovering around 650, and as I write there are still 655 active listings, and just a further 57 homes under contract. With sales over recent months running around 40 to 55 per month, there is a 12 month supply of homes on the market, compared with around a 2 month supply before the market began to turn in July 2005.

The chart shows the trend since January 2005, with the rapid growth of active listings (blue), decline of sales (yellow), and the trend in the supply of homes on the market (red). Click on the chart to see a larger image.

The latest cause for concern is the turmoil in the mortgage market. With the increase in foreclosures, mortgage quality has become a big concern in the wholesale market where mortgages are "sold" and bundled as mortgage bonds to the investment funds (such as the one looking after your 401k). The result is that some lenders have been unable to bundle and sell their loans on, and as a result have been unable to lend new mortgages - effectively having to close shop.

Lending criteria across the board have been progressively tightened, and many people who could get a loan a few weeks ago are now unable to; many who could get 100% finance may now have to put 10% down (which may well count them out); and those looking for "no doc" or "stated income" loans may be looking in vain. In a nutshell, good quality credit is more important than ever (perhaps it always should have been?), and most of the "creative" lending has gone out of the window.

If you were pre-qualified a few weeks ago with your lender, check again before you do any more house hunting. You need to make sure that you are still on the same page with the amount that you can borrow, and the terms attached to it.