Want the good news, or the iffy news, when it comes to the state of the local area’s late-winter-early-spring homes market?
We cater to both tastes:
• The good news: Weekly home showings across the Washington region continue to ramp up, building to what probably will be the annual high point later in springtime.
• The more sobering information: Weekly showings remain below the levels of each of the past five years.
There were a total of 26,600 home showings across the area covered by Bright MLS, the region’s multiple-listing service, for the week ending March 17.
That is up 6.2 percent from a week before – a typical bump up as springtime kicks off – but remained down 6 percent from the same week in 2023 and also below levels of 2022, 2021 and 2020, as well.
(The numbers represent activity in the District of Columbia; Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church in Virginia; and Montgomery, Prince George’s and Frederick counties in Maryland.)
Having 2024 being in last place, showing-wise, over the five-year comparison period is about to change, albeit for a very specific reason. Starting in late March 2020, showings plummeted owing to the onset of COVID, and stayed low for about two months before the situation boomeranged and the local real-estate market kicked into high gear.
Today, availability and affordability issues continue to challenge today’s prospective purchasers.
The median list price of all homes that came to market the week ending March 17 ($635,000) was up slightly from a week before. The number of new listings coming to market (1,353) was down 1.4 percent from a week before and up a fraction of a percent from a year ago.
The number of contracts signed during the week (1,325) was down 1.3 percent from the week before and was off 8 percent from a year ago.
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For more data, see the Website at brightmls.com/marketupdate.
