Keeping with the recent wave of good housing news, local real estate advisor Fulton Research released its latest Residential Market Trends report, which declares the Washington, D.C housing market to have officially stablized. What I find most interesting is the data pertaining to home sales in Prince George’s County.
In the resale market, Prince George’s County ranks the highest in the D.C. metropolitan area with a year-over-year sales increase seated at 17 percent. This clearing of inventory, which Prince George’s also ranks among the highest with one of the largested annual decreases in home listings, a drop of 14 percent, demonstrates a positive trend in demand for housing, specifically for new homes in the Washington area.
The warming real estate market in Prince George’s County also reflects a regional trend in which the volume of sales during the last 18 months have crept higher and higher—in June of last year we saw sales edge to nearly 6,300 units.
A lot of credit for Washington’s stabilized housing market is due to our area’s lower unemployment rate. At one point in September 2009 the Washington area’s unemployment topped out at 6.2 percent. Now, at just 5.9 percent from the same time a year before, our metropolitan area’s unemployment is among the lowest in the nation, well below the national average at 9.4 percent. And while Fulton Research’s needle squarely points to a stabilized Washington housing market, I anticipate a jolt to full recovery soon, which means D.C. housing prices will begin to rise.
According to an article in USA Today, our area is far from atypical. “Buyers are returning to the housing market after a government tax credit expired in the middle of 2010, indicating the drop in prices and cheap lending rates are making homes more affordable.”
When the current inventory of previously owned homes starts to dwindle, which at the current rate won’t be far off, Washingtonians will see a housing shortage forcing home prices higher.
Tags: home prices, Luxury Homes in Prince George’s County, Maryland New Homes
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[...] it has continued to outperform national averages and economic projections. As I have explained in previous posts, this is largely due to our relatively stable government-employed workforce. Still, positive [...]