Expect about 25,000 fewer homes to have been sold across Northern Virginia in 2023 compared to 2022, a decline of roughly 20 percent.
For the first 11 months of the year, home sales commonwealth-wide totaled 91,535, according to figures reported Dec. 21 by the Virginia Realtors trade group.
That’s down 20.9 percent (24,217 homes) from the 115,752 transactions during the first 11 months of 2022, according to the group’s figures.
The gap is declining – the 6,948 sales in November 2023 represented a decline of just 9.5 percent – but that is due to the cooler market conditions that already had arrived by the tail end of 2022.
For the first 11 months of the year, the median sales price of $390,000 was up 4 percent from $375,000 in 2022, a case of low inventory continuing to prop up market conditions.
But the lower sales decidedly impacted the bottom line – total sales volume for the first 11 months was $44.1 billion, down 17.8 percent from $53.7 billion at the same point in 2022.
Assuming an average 5-percent commission rate, that means there was $475 million less going into the pockets of Virginia real-estate firms and agents during the year.
Although inventory has been a significant issue throughout the year – buyers can’t buy what sellers won’t sell – the end-of-November total of 18,381 homes on the market almost was on par with the figure in November 2021. It was still low, although prognosticators are hopeful that lower interest rates will cause more homeowners currently sitting on record-low interest rates to decide the time has come to sell.
Figures represent most, but not all, homes on the market. All November 2023 figures are preliminary and subject to revision.
