Northern Virginia’s real-estate market saw a modest increase in sales from March to April – up 3.6 percent – which might have been best news to come out of the monthly report.
“It’s reassuring to see the subtle increase in sales activity month-over-month,” said Ryan McLaughlin, CEO of the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors (NVAR), in parsing April sales data.
“Annual trends suggest that demand rises in the spring, and this year is no exception,” McLaughlin said. “What we see is consistent with recent trends over the past few months – there are fewer sales happening now than this time last year, but home prices have held steady.”
Indeed: The median sales price of homes sold in April ($690,000) was up 0.7 percent from a year before, as the lack of inventory helped those sellers who did opt to put their homes on the market. And when held up against the last pre-COVID April (2019), the median sale price had grown 23 percent from $560,000.
(Figures represent transactions in Arlington and Fairfax counties and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church.)
Comparing the spring-of-2023 market to spring-of-2022 is something of an apples-to-oranges errand. The April 2022 sales market was something of a last-minute frenzy with buyers rushing to get whatever they could in an effort to blunt spiking interest rates and sellers rushing their homes to market to beat the predicted – accurately, as it turned out – slowdown during the second half of the year.
The current market is “healthier and more predictable for buyers,” said Arshia Kia, a member of NVAR’s board of directors.
“The ability for Realtors to negotiate on behalf of client interests and problem-solve with sellers is a necessary part of the home-buying process,” Kia said.
The average amount of time required between listing and ratified sales contract – also known as “days on the market” – was 18 in April, significantly higher than a year before (no surprise there) but lower than March 2023. That month-over-month dip suggests prospective purchasers are pouncing on properly priced properties.
The number of active listings in April 2023 was 1,353, which compares to 1,638 in April 2022 and 2,508 in April 2019.
One main reason it’s so low? Homeowners who acquired mortgage financing with rock-bottom interest rates prior to the start of 2022 have no desire to give it up by selling now.
Figures represent most, but not all, sales across the region. April 2023 figures are preliminary and are subject to revision. For more data, see the Website at NVAR.com/public.
