Local home-buyers looking in Arlington and Alexandria were the most enthusiastic during March, and while the rest of the region trailed, buyer interest was almost uniformly higher than at the start of the year.
The Bright MLS T3 Home Demand Index uses a variety of data points to settle on a monthly score for buyer interest all the way down to the ZIP-code level. It is a forward-looking counterpart to rear-view-mirror monthly sales data.
The open-ended scorecard gauges buyer-interest conditions as High with any score above 130; Moderate from 110-129; Steady from 90-109; and Slow from 70-89. Any score less than 70 suggests the market of available homes is limited.
The latest monthly report, looking at market conditions toward the end of March, was detailed on April 12. Regionwide, the overall score of 83 was up from 73 in February and from 57 in January, albeit down from a more robust120 a year before.
Buyers, even those who are undaunted by the double-whammy of higher prices and rising interest rates, are facing limited availability.
“The number of new listings is still far below what would be seen in a typical spring housing market,” Bright MLS’s chief economist Lisa Sturtevant said in her monthly analysis. “
The good news for sellers: “Very limited inventory will keep any [price] declines modest,” Bright MLS’s analysis suggested.
Among jurisdictions, Arlington led the T3 pack in the new data with a score of 144 for March, up from 125 in February, followed by Alexandria at 128, up from 117.
(While month-over-month scores were up nearly unanimously, year-over-year index scores were down by double digits across the region.)
Among other jurisdictions, scores for April were 94 in Falls Church and in Fairfax County (up from 77 and 75 a month before, respectively); 90 in the District of Columbia (72); 81 in Prince George’s County (76); 74 in Loudoun County (63); 72 in Montgomery County (62); and, the only jurisdiction that saw a month-over-month decline, Frederick County at 49 (50).
For full details. see the Website at www.homedemandindex.com.
