In July 2026, the median single-family sale price in Chesterfield County fell 3.3% from a year earlier, to $440,000. In the same month, the median in Henrico County rose 11.8%, to $475,000. Two adjoining counties, the two largest residential markets in the region, one MLS, one month, and fifteen percentage points of daylight between them.
The obvious reading is that Henrico homes appreciated sharply while Chesterfield homes lost ground. The rest of the July 2026 data makes that hard to sustain: both counties sold faster than a year ago, and both had less inventory relative to demand. Only the medians moved apart. Everything below is county-level or regional CVR MLS data for July 2026. None of it describes an individual property.
The July 2026 Numbers, Side by Side
The whole disagreement, in one table. Single-family detached, county-level, July 2026, against July 2025.
| Metric (July 2026, county-level) | Chesterfield County | Henrico County |
|---|---|---|
| Closed sales | 407 (-8.3% YoY) | 287 (-2.0% YoY) |
| Median sold price | $440,000 (-3.3% YoY) | $475,000 (+11.8% YoY) |
| Median days on market | 21 (-8.7% YoY) | 16 (-11.1% YoY) |
| Months of supply | 1.8 (-10.0% YoY) | 1.5 (-11.8% YoY) |
| Median price per square foot | [DATA NEEDED: median price per square foot, July 2026, by area] | |
Source. Central Virginia Regional MLS, single-family, July 2026, published by the Richmond Association of REALTORS at rarealtors.com/housingreports, current as of 10 August 2026. County-level aggregates covering every reported sale inside the county line, not neighborhood figures.
August 2026 is not published yet. This post covers July 2026 only. The August tables normally follow in mid-September.
Both Counties Tightened and Both Sold Faster
Set the medians aside and read the columns describing how hard it was to buy. Chesterfield finished July 2026 at 1.8 months of supply, down 10.0% year over year; Henrico at 1.5 months, down 11.8%. Both sit far under the four-to-six-month range usually called balanced, and both got tighter rather than looser. Speed says the same: Chesterfield went to contract in a median 21 days, down 8.7%, Henrico in 16 days, down 11.1%.
If buyers had genuinely retreated from Chesterfield and piled into Henrico, Chesterfield inventory would be building and its listings lingering. Neither happened. Both counties moved the same direction on demand, at roughly the same magnitude, in the same month, which is the strongest evidence that the median gap is not about buyer preference shifting across the river. Our companion piece on months of supply across the Richmond metro in July 2026 works through every locality.
One volume figure did diverge. Chesterfield closed 407 homes, down 8.3%, while Henrico closed 287, down 2.0%. Chesterfield still closed far more homes but gave up more ground. Hold that thought: a falling count is exactly when a median becomes least trustworthy.
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A Median Measures Which Homes Sold, Not What Any Home Is Worth
This matters more than any single number above. A median sold price is the middle value of the homes that closed in an area in a month. Change the mix and the median moves, even if not one property changed in value.
An illustration. Nine homes close at $300,000, $340,000, $380,000, $420,000, $460,000, $500,000, $540,000, $580,000 and $620,000, so the median is $460,000. A year later the same nine houses are worth exactly what they were, but the two cheapest do not sell because their buyers were priced out. Seven close, the middle one is $500,000, and the median has risen 8.7% while nothing appreciated at all.
That is a mix effect, and it is the likeliest explanation for the Henrico figure. An 11.8% jump in the county-level median arriving in the same month that Henrico unit sales fell 2.0% is far more consistent with a shift in which homes closed than with 11.8% of genuine appreciation across every house in the county. Fewer entry-level closings and a slightly heavier tilt toward higher-priced sales will do it alone.
The same logic runs backwards in Chesterfield. A 3.3% decline alongside an 8.3% drop in closed sales does not establish that Chesterfield homes lost 3.3% of their value. It establishes that the middle of the July 2026 sales list sat lower than the middle of the July 2025 list. Chesterfield has an unusually wide spread of housing stock, which makes its median especially sensitive to which segments happen to transact.
The plain version: if you own in Henrico, your house did not necessarily gain 11.8% this year. If you own in Chesterfield, it did not necessarily lose 3.3%. A county-level median is not a valuation of your address and should never be used as one.
The figure that would settle this is median price per square foot, which normalises for house size and gets far closer to a like-for-like comparison. It is not published in the free tables, so we have flagged it as [DATA NEEDED: median price per square foot, July 2026, by area] rather than estimate it.
What a 3.3% Median Decline Means for a Chesterfield Seller
Very little on its own. The relevant Chesterfield numbers for someone listing this autumn are the 21-day median time to contract and 1.8 months of supply, both improved year over year. That is not a market in retreat.
What the 3.3% should do is make you sceptical of any pricing conversation resting on a county median. That county-level figure covers Midlothian, Woodlake, Bon Air, Hallsley and Ettrick alike, and those submarkets do not move as one. The CVR MLS tables do not break out figures at that level, so nobody should quote you a Midlothian or Woodlake median from this data.
Separate the market from the assessment, too. Chesterfield reassesses annually and publishes the process and appeal window through its Real Estate Assessments office. An assessment is a tax valuation produced by mass appraisal; a market price is what one buyer paid on one day; a median is neither. For a figure about your house rather than about 407 other transactions, start with a free home valuation, a comparable-sales analysis of your address.
What an 11.8% Median Increase Means for a Henrico Seller
Also very little, and the risk runs the other way. The danger for a Henrico owner is reading 11.8% as a licence to price high. Sixteen days to contract and 1.5 months of supply are genuinely strong conditions and are the numbers to take seriously. The 11.8% is likeliest to be an artefact of which 287 homes happened to close.
As in Chesterfield, the county-level figure spans an enormous range. Short Pump, Glen Allen, Tuckahoe, Lakeside, Varina and Sandston all sit inside that single $475,000 median, and their price levels are nowhere near each other. A shift of a few dozen closings between the western and eastern ends of the county moves the county median several percent without values changing anywhere.
Henrico is also where the difference between assessed and market value is stated officially. The county’s Real Estate Assessment Division reassesses annually under Section 58.1-3201 of the Code of Virginia, which requires assessment at 100% of fair market value. That is a mass-appraisal estimate effective 1 January, so a median rising 11.8% does not mean your assessment will. What has recently sold and for how much is more informative than any county statistic.
What Buyers Are Facing in Each County
For buyers the divergence is mostly a distraction. A buyer in Henrico had a median 16 days to see a house, decide and write, against 1.5 months of supply; a buyer in Chesterfield had 21 days against 1.8 months. Marginally different degrees of the same pressure.
What the medians do tell buyers is roughly where the middle of each county sits: $440,000 in Chesterfield and $475,000 in Henrico in July 2026. That $35,000 gap is real as a statement about the two counties’ overall housing mix. It is not a statement that the same house is $35,000 cheaper on the Chesterfield side.
- Settle the financing first. At 16 to 21 median days on market, an underwritten pre-approval beats a fractionally higher offer. The CFPB’s buying a house guides cover the sequence without a sales pitch.
- Search across the county line. Set a price band and a commute, then search current Richmond-area listings rather than shopping by county reputation.
- Do not wait for the median to fall. Nothing in the July 2026 supply figures suggests either county is loosening.
How the Two Counties Sit Inside the Wider July 2026 Region
Widening the frame makes the mix argument harder to dispute. The Richmond Metro aggregate for July 2026 was 1,049 closed sales, up 0.5%, at a $460,000 median, up 2.2%. A Chesterfield median falling and a Henrico median rising nets out close to flat, which is what composition rather than valuation would produce.
| Area (July 2026, single-family) | Closed (YoY) | Median DOM | Median price (YoY) | Months of supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entire MLS | 1,573 (+0.4%) | 25 | $430,000 (+1.2%) | 2.3 |
| Richmond Metro | 1,049 (+0.5%) | 19 | $460,000 (+2.2%) | 1.8 |
| Chesterfield County | 407 (-8.3%) | 21 | $440,000 (-3.3%) | 1.8 |
| Henrico County | 287 (-2.0%) | 16 | $475,000 (+11.8%) | 1.5 |
| City of Richmond | 218 (+6.9%) | 17 | $450,000 (-3.4%) | 1.5 |
| Hanover County | 137 (+33.0%) | 21 | $525,000 (+1.0%) | 2.4 |
| Powhatan County | 46 (+4.5%) | 22 | $486,250 (-3.4%) | 3.1 |
| Goochland County | 44 (+51.7%) | 30 | $655,000 (-3.0%) | 2.8 |
All rows: Central Virginia Regional MLS, single-family, July 2026, via the Richmond Association of REALTORS, current as of 10 August 2026. Locality-level aggregates.
Four of the eight areas posted a median decline in July 2026, including the City of Richmond at -3.4% and Goochland at -3.0%, while the metro aggregate still rose 2.2%. Medians at this granularity bounce around. Goochland is the clearest case: 44 closed sales produced a $655,000 median, and on a base that thin a handful of large rural sales moves the figure several percent. The same caution applies with far more force to smaller geographies, as in Ashland’s July 2026 numbers and why 17 sales cannot carry a $620,000 median. Chesterfield at 407 and Henrico at 287 are the two most robust county samples in the region. Sample size is not the problem here. Composition is.
What These Tables Do Not Contain
- Price per square foot is absent. [DATA NEEDED: median price per square foot, July 2026, by area]. It would separate a mix effect from real appreciation, and it is not in the free sortable tables.
- August 2026 is not published. Everything here is July 2026; the August tables appear in mid-September.
- No neighborhood breakout exists. The tables stop at the locality level: no Midlothian row, no Short Pump row, no Glen Allen row.
- Condominiums and attached homes are excluded. These are single-family detached figures only.
- Medians ignore concessions. A $475,000 sale with $12,000 of seller-paid closing costs and one with none both enter the table as $475,000.
The Short Version of a Confusing Month
Chesterfield and Henrico did not part company in July 2026. Their medians did. Underneath, both counties sold faster than a year ago and both held under two months of supply, which is the same market condition described twice. The defensible conclusion is that the mix of homes closing in Henrico skewed higher and the mix in Chesterfield skewed lower, and neither tells an owner anything reliable about their own house.
Want next month’s numbers, with the caveats attached?
August 2026 CVR MLS figures land in mid-September. Our weekly market email carries them with a straight read on what is signal and what is just a change in what happened to sell. If you would rather have a number about your own address, ask for a comparable-sales valuation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which county sold more single-family homes in July 2026?
Chesterfield, by a wide margin. Chesterfield County recorded 407 closed single-family sales against Henrico County’s 287, roughly 42% more, even though Chesterfield’s year-over-year drop was steeper at -8.3% versus -2.0%.
Is 1.5 months of supply in Henrico a seller’s market?
By the conventional reading, yes. A balanced market is usually described as four to six months. Henrico County finished July 2026 at 1.5 months and Chesterfield at 1.8, against 1.8 for the Richmond Metro and 2.3 for the entire MLS. Powhatan was the loosest locality at 3.1 months, still below balanced.
Why is Chesterfield’s median lower than Henrico’s when Chesterfield has so much new construction?
Because a median is the midpoint of everything that sold, not a measure of the newest stock. Chesterfield County has a very large inventory of older and smaller homes, which pulls the midpoint down even with substantial new construction in the western county. In July 2026 the county-level medians were $440,000 and $475,000.
When will the August 2026 Richmond-area figures be available?
The Central Virginia Regional MLS statistics are published monthly by the Richmond Association of REALTORS. The July 2026 tables used here were current as of 10 August 2026. August 2026 had not been published at the time of writing and typically appears in mid-September.
Is my county tax assessment the same as my home’s market value?
No. Section 58.1-3201 of the Code of Virginia requires localities to assess at 100% of fair market value, but an assessment is a mass-appraisal estimate effective 1 January, produced by analysing thousands of transfers at once. In Henrico County, assessment appeals must be filed no later than 1 April.
Did every part of the Richmond region sell faster in July 2026?
No. Henrico improved to 16 median days on market (-11.1%), Chesterfield to 21 (-8.7%) and the Richmond Metro to 19 (-13.6%). But Goochland slowed to 30 days (+11.1%), Powhatan held flat at 22, and the entire MLS was unchanged at 25.
How many sales does an area need before its median is trustworthy?
There is no hard threshold, but the difference is large. Chesterfield’s 407 closings and Henrico’s 287 are robust samples where a few unusual sales cannot move the midpoint much. Goochland’s 44 and Powhatan’s 46 are far thinner, and a town-level figure such as Ashland’s 17 sales cannot reliably support a median at all.
How do I find out whether my own home actually gained value this year?
Not from a county median. You need comparable sales of homes similar to yours in size, age and condition, within a defensible radius and usually within the last ninety days, adjusted for differences. Median price per square foot would help as a cross-check but is not published in the free CVR MLS tables.
Written by the Mission Realty Team.
Mission Realty is a Richmond, Virginia brokerage affiliated with Real Broker LLC, 3701 Cox Rd, Richmond, VA 23233. (804) 601-4960. meet the team.
Figures here are Central Virginia Regional MLS single-family statistics for July 2026, current as of 10 August 2026. They are locality-level aggregates, not a valuation of any individual property.
