A year ago right about this time, home-sellers across Fairfax County were hustling to get their properties on the market in anticipation – correctly, as it turned out – that things soon would be turning sour as interest rates rose and affordability issues priced out some would-be buyers.
So it’s perhaps no surprise that the 831 properties that came onto the Fairfax market this February represented a decline of 41 percent from the 1,410 homes coming to listing a year ago.
That lack of brand-new inventory is being offset, however, by the increasing length of time it is taking to sell homes. As a result, prospective purchasers in February had more properties to look at (799 vs. 531 a year before in Fairfax County) and more time to make up their minds.
Monthly figures for February were reported March 10 by MarketStats by ShowingTime based on listing activity from Bright MLS. And to no one’s surprise, sales were down significantly from a year before. The 694 properties going to closing countywide represented a 26-percent drop from 933 a year ago.
The average sales price of all transactions during the month ($717,550) was essentially flat from the $713,873 recorded a year before, but there were differentials in the three segments of the market:
• The average sales price of single-family homes stood at $979,043, down 4.9 percent from $1,029,954.
• The average sales price of attached homes (townhouses, rowhouses and condominiums) was $491,299, up 7.2 percent from $458,435.
• The average sales price of the condo-only sector was up 7.7 percent from $344,492 to $371,062.
A total of 101 properties went to closing for more than $1 million across Fairfax during the month, including 10 for more than $2.5 million and two for more than $5 million.
Add up the sales and prices, and total market volume for the month stood at $496.1 million, down 23.5 percent from $648.4 million a year ago.
Homes that went to closing in February garnered, on average, 99.1 percent of original listing price, down from 102.5 percent a year before, and spent an average of 31 days on the market before finding a suitor, up from 21 days a year before.
Conventional mortgages represented the method of conducting the transaction in 461 cases, followed by cash (115) and VA-backed loans (76).
Where is the market headed in the near term? The good news is that seasonality has returned, and the number of pending sales (967) in the pipeline suggests March transactions will be higher than in February. The bad news is that pending sales are still running about one-third less than they were a year ago.
Figures represent most, but not all, homes on the market. All February 2023 figures are preliminary and are subject to revision.
