A recovery year for real estate, falling supply meets rising demand…
The real estate market in the DC Metro area and Northern Virginia isn’t like the rest of the country’s real estate situation. RBI, or the Real estate business institute, says that we’re up to some good with housing demand strengthening organically here in Northern Virginia- which is awesome! The interesting thing is that although we have plenty of active buyers out there trying to snag those houses at great interest rates, active listings are down 22%. What does this mean? A month’s supply of inventory is down 18.2% to 3.1 month’s worth of inventory and a 5-6 month’s supply of inventory in the industry means that there is balance in the market. We are technically in a seller’s market right now. Watch RBI’s video on the current market conditions, by clicking the image below. Remember that you can always get the latest market report from RBI on my home page on the bottom right image under “Market Watch.”
Another Wall Street Journal article from this week mentioned that “Many economists had predicted that 2011 would be the worst year on record for existing home sales, but the year ended with 4.26 million sales, about 1.6% higher than the 4.19 million existing homes sold in 2010. Market-watchers attributed this to a minor surge in sales at year-end, driven by historically low mortgage rates, falling prices, active investor-buyers and increasing consumer confidence. ” Who doesn’t love a low interest rate?! Then there is that little detail that is shocking in Arlington: Median sales prices have increased and people are still buying. The spring sales market is showing signs of happy words per RBI: higher, increase, positive. We like these words in Northern Virginia Real Estate. With the lack of homes on the market, it will remain a seller’s market until we see more homes hit the market in Spring. I’ve been noticing a great amount of new construction in South Arlington and hope to see more of it ready for my buyers in Spring 2012. Let me know if you’re ready to talk about your real estate needs.
