The real estate market in Northern Virginia is giving new emphasis to the phrase “seller’s market.” Going into the fall, with the school year already started, experts say that there won’t be many homes on the market between now and spring. And those homes that do hit the market are likely to carry a high price tag. This is nothing new in NoVA, which is a wildly popular place to live thanks to the region’s proximity to Washington, D.C., the beautiful weather, the great quality of life, excellent schools, and so on.
The Washington Post recently ran a story on the real estate situation in Northern Virginia. The piece emphasized the region’s seasonal selling patterns, which are largely based on the school calendar. The most buying and selling activity takes place in a frenzy during the summer, while the kids are out of school and won’t have to be uprooted in the midst of a semester. Spring and autumn see only tepid sales activity, while winter, thanks to the weather, is something of a dead zone.
This seasonal flux means that there is limited inventory for buyers looking to obtain a home in Northern Virginia. Not only are fewer people selling, but prices remain really high, which is a blockage to homeownership for many first-time buyers.
“The Northern Virginia housing market is particularly driven by the school schedule, so buyers won’t be seeing a lot of new listings in the fall,” says Nela Richardson, chief economist for Redfin real estate brokerage in Washington. “The housing market appears to be slowing there like it is in a lot of the country, in part because prices are high.”
Prices are uniformly high across Northern Virginia, although particularly so in areas closest to D.C. like Arlington, McLean and Alexandria. Richardson reports that Alexandria saw a significant increase in home prices this summer, thanks in part to hipster-cool neighborhoods like Old Town and Del Ray.
As per the Washington Post: “Overall in Northern Virginia, median home sale prices from January through August 2016 rose just 0.5 percent to $432,000 from $430,000 in that same period in 2015. The number of homes sold between January and August rose 5.2 percent, from 25,102 in 2015 to 26,401 in 2016, according to MRIS.”
Add to high prices the fact that home inventory fell between August 2015 and August 2016 by 18.0 percent for single-family homes, 29.1 percent for townhouses and 20.4 percent for condos, and you understand why it’s tough to be a buyer in NoVA right now.
