The housing market in the Washington and Baltimore area has been declining in the Washington, DC for about 2 years. Thus the year over year comparisons only represent a portion of the declining housing market.
Northern Virginia (Fairfax County, Fairfax City, Arlington County, Alexandria City, & Falls Church City, VA (NVAR))
* Median Price: $401K
* Median Sales Price YoY: -12.8%
* Average Sales Price YoY: -10.6%
* Total Units Sold YoY: -29%
* Average Days on Market YoY: 8%
* Active Listings YoY: 25%
* Months Supply: 8.1
Baltimore City Area (Anne Arundel, Baltimore City/County, Carroll, Harford, Howard (BALT AREA) )
* Median Price: $260k
* Median Sales Price YoY: -3.2%
* Average Sales Price YoY: -2.9%
* Total Units Sold YoY: -34%
* Average Days on Market YoY: 43%
* Active Listings YoY: 20%
* Months Supply: 10.1
Washington, DC (just the District of Columbia, no suburbs)
* Median Price: $400k
* Median Sales Price YoY: -8.1%
* Average Sales Price YoY: -4.7%
* Total Units Sold YoY: -40%
* Average Days on Market YoY: -5%
* Active Listings YoY: 26%
* Months Supply: 8.7
Prince George's County, MD
* Median Price: $286K
* Median Sales Price YoY: -13.5%
* Average Sales Price YoY: -9.5%
* Total Units Sold YoY: -57%
* Average Days on Market YoY: 61%
* Active Listings YoY: 59%
* Months Supply: 21
Montgomery County, MD
* Median Price: $403K
* Median Sales Price YoY: -6.5%
* Average Sales Price YoY: -1.8%
* Total Units Sold YoY: -39%
* Average Days on Market YoY: 14%
* Active Listings YoY: 37%
* Months Supply: 11
Loudoun County, VA
* Median Price: $358K
* Median Sales Price YoY: -19.9%
* Average Sales Price YoY: -20.5%
* Total Units Sold YoY: -20%
* Average Days on Market YoY: -4%
* Active Listings YoY: 1%
* Months Supply: 9.8
Arlington County, VA
* Median Price: $485K
* Median Sales Price YoY: 3.2&
* Average Sales Price YoY: .7%
* Total Units Sold YoY: -32%
* Average Days on Market YoY: -10%
* Active Listings YoY: 15%
* Months Supply: 5.5
Frederick County, MD
* Median Price: $290K
* Median Sales Price YoY: -5.7%
* Average Sales Price YoY: -5.0%
* Total Units Sold YoY: - 38%
* Average Days on Market YoY: 61%
* Active Listings YoY: 16%
* Months Supply: 14
Fairfax County, VA
* Median Price: $395K
* Median Sales Price YoY: -13.3%
* Average Sales Price YoY: -11.9%
* Total Units Sold YoY: -26%
* Average Days on Market YoY: 13.5%
* Active Listings YoY: 30%
* Months Supply: 8.6
Howard County, MD
* Median Price: $362K
* Median Sales Price YoY: -6%
* Average Sales Price YoY: -8.2%
* Total Units Sold YoY: -44%
* Average Days on Market YoY: 28%
* Active Listings YoY: 24%
* Months Supply: 10.9
Prince William County, VA
* Median Sales Price YoY: -30%
* Average Sales Price YoY: -26.7%
* Total Units Sold YoY: 20%
* Average Days on Market YoY: 0%
* Active Listings YoY: 27%
* Months Supply: 11.5
For more numbers on jurisdictions not mentioned here please go to MRIS Market Statistics.
These numbers show a declining housing market in the Washington - Baltimore area compared to last year. For every jurisdiction listed inventory remains elevated and sales remain low.
In Prince William County, VA lower prices are driving higher sales with are up 20% compared to March 2007. Median sales price stood at 273K which is down 30% from last year. The peak median price was 379K in July 2005. For more information on Northern Virginia please see A Decade of A March Sales at Greater Northern VA Housing Bubble Fallout.
The Washington - Baltimore area is not recovering from the housing decline. Prices continue to fall. Although prices are falling slowly in the desirable neighborhoods within the Beltway. Far out suburbs and condos are experiencing larger price declines. In the metropolitan area a declining housing market is reality. For real estate, this spring's real estate season will not see increasing prices. Housing busts usually last many, many years. Further price declines are coming this year.
Posts
Where's Howard County? That's near Baltimore. Please gimme some HoCo?
ReplyDeleteThose numbers are brutal. I have been a huge housing bear for a long time (as my posts on here have shown) but I have been surprised at the relentless grinding down of the market since 2005. I expected more upturns. There really haven't been any. It's just been one brutal bashing after another.
ReplyDeleteAs David points out, these declines are, in many cases, off further declines the previous year. And all prices are for sales, not for inventory, with inventory much larger than sales and apparently with prices falling faster than sales, as shown on the "Housing market tracker" website.
When you take into account inflation, prices have already fallen 20-30% in the DC area. Back in 2005 or so, I was criticized on this website for stating that I would not buy unless prices fell 50%. We are likely already more than halfway there, and not showing any signs of stopping.
ARF
Are there more detailed stats for areas within the district? For example, NW? Are prices there still holding up or falling?
ReplyDeleteThose drops in PWC and the burbs are brutal. I've been a big bear for a while too, and I am surprised at how much and how fast those areas have fallen. And with 1 year or more inventory, it looks like they will keep falling. It's to the point that $300k townhomes in Manass and Dumfries are listing for under $100k.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, I am surprised that the desirable areas of the District are still holding up. I've been working on detailed stats for District zip codes, and 20007, 20008, 20003, 20009, 20010, 20016, and 20015 are all still sitting with 6 months or less inventory. These are the most desirable zip codes in the District.
When will these areas drop? Will they ever drop? I'm curious to see what everyone think.
"Where's Howard County? That's near Baltimore. Please gimme some HoCo?"
ReplyDeleteI have added Howard Co. in the post. :-)
"Are there more detailed stats for areas within the district? For example, NW? Are prices there still holding up or falling?"
ReplyDeleteMRIS can help, the problem is that there are not enough sales per zipcode per month to have meaningful comparisons to last year's March.
Prices are falling very slowly in the more desirable parts of DC proper. Still I think in mostfo these areas prices are generally down 5 - 10% in nominal terms from peak. And 12 - 17% in real dollars.
I think a big question is with PWC . . . is the sales uptick real . . . or is it a result of banks finally clearing through the foreclosures.
ReplyDeleteIf the uptick is real (i.e. real buyers, not banks) then PWC might be closer to the end of price drops than other places.
Volume precedes Price.
What's your thoughts on Montgomery County?
ReplyDeleteThe realtors selling DC homes need to have their butts kicked for manipulating days on market. Units sold down 40% and active listings up 26%, yet average days on market are down 5%? Yeah right. Good thing everyone knows how poor the real estate market is.
ReplyDeleteThis is just stupid! Lawrence Yun gives a presentation explaining why housing is undervalued.
ReplyDelete"Suburbs on the fringe built with all the certainty of the future are now very uncertain because people living there sometimes have to spend 40 percent of their household budget on transport, and 40 percent is not sustainable. If you're going from $3.50 a gallon gas to $6 a gallon, which is the price of fuel in Europe . . . many of these suburbs will be abandoned. They are not resilient."
ReplyDeleteLink.
David, here is my month post for the Maryland counties.
ReplyDeletehttp://bubblemore.blogspot.com/2008/04/march-2008-maryland-housing-data.html
Where's Lance to put some positive spin on these numbers? I think that the positive spin is that lower prices mean more affordable housing. That is to say housing that is ACTUALLY more affordable, not the illusion of affordability that the loose lending stupidity of the 2004-2006 period gave us.
ReplyDelete-Jim A
I'm new to the DC area, and am used to my old county's tax & assessment information for properties. I've used the database search on https://www.taxpayerservicecenter.com, but the problem I have with it is that it will give me the most recent sale price of a property, but not a history of transactions. Is there a resource like this available online for DC? Or do I have to manually look through physical records at the courthouse?
ReplyDeleteI have been looking out for a townhouse on cap hill with 3 or 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a parking space, in the 750k range, for quite some time. I can say confidently that things on the good parts of the Hill are not a bit more affordable than they were 2 or 3 years ago, and the inventory is not impressive (i.e., there's little available) right now, which is supposed to be high selling season.
ReplyDeletevalerie,
ReplyDeleteThe DC site will give you different sales transactions for the same property, the problem is it only goes back so far and if the property has not exchanged hands too many times since 1999 (which is how far back I believe the data goes) you won't be able to track the sales. I think the Washington post recent sales feature lets you track things back a little better. The DC real estate tax department is EXTREMELY slow and updating things.
Valerie asked:
ReplyDelete"I'm new to the DC area, and am used to my old county's tax & assessment information for properties. I've used the database search on https://www.taxpayerservicecenter.com, but the problem I have with it is that it will give me the most recent sale price of a property, but not a history of transactions. Is there a resource like this available online for DC? Or do I have to manually look through physical records at the courthouse?"
Zillow.com lists past sales prices.
From my persepective the PWC bounce is not 'real' buyers. Anecdotally places are still dropping their prices, by even larger percentages than shown here; and they are not selling.
ReplyDeleteGiven the numbers I'm seeing in the Washington Post the median may even take a bounce in a few months, but it's still quite low volume, and price cuts aren't motivating too many more to get into the market yet.
To the anon looking for a place on Capitol Hill. I have a 2300 square foot shell a builder is going to break-ground on in June -- 1 block outside the Historic District, so you can add a roof deck (with less oversight), and design everything (and I mean everything) yourself. Depending on what you pick out $750 grand would be in the range, just don't go overbaord with ultra expensive stuff. And you could design your own floorplan -- so beds and baths would be as many as you could squeeze in, or as big as you wanted. The appraisal on the construction loan came back at $800grand with 5 beds and 3.5 baths. It is a corner lot with 34 windows, a legal rental unit, all above grade. Think brand-new plumbing, electric, HVAC, cherry floors throught, crown molding, transoms, high-efficiency/Green everything. It will sell regardless, but contact me if you want a custom house.
ReplyDelete