Economy

Officially, unemployment in the U.S. was at about 7.7% in November*. That’s high, but it’s been dropping steadily over the past year, and in Virginia, our rate is about two percent lower.

The latest report from ADP found good news: “U.S. private-sector employers added 215,000 jobs last month, well above economists’ expectations.”

Great. So more Americans are going back to work. What’s not to like (especially because 39,000 of those new workers were in the construction industry)?

For the long term, it’s all good of course. Healthy, happy, employed people make the economy grow, pay taxes, and — hopefully — buy homes, too. But here’s a nugget: The Federal Reserve has said it won’t raise interest rates until unemployment hits 6.5%.

The November 2012 Virginia Home Sales Report has been released and the pace of sales increased sharply (+18%) accompanied by a 12% increase in the median sales price in the Commonwealth.

Henrico County has lost an eminent domain case brought by a developer who had a chunk of her land acquired/seized by the county. A jury unanimously awarded the the (former) property owner an additional $236,750 for the land, which had been taken as part of a road-extension project.

Quickly put:

Emily Sterling owned a half-acre plot — acquired by her father in 1997 — at what is now a rapidly growing section of western Henrico.

The county offered Sterling $126,000 for the 1/5th of an acre it needed for the project.

Sterling declined, but offered the full half acre to Henrico for $253,000.

The county said no and took its 1/5th acre via eminent domain.

Fannie Mae’s latest National Housing Survey found that Americans are feeling more positive about the economy, and are happy to make predictions about it.

More people expect mortgage rates to go up and housing prices to go down over the next year, for example. And — based on what I couldn’t tell you — “51 percent of respondents now say it would be easy to get a mortgage.”