DC Area Home Prices Drop Slightly As Inventory Strengthens

• July 10, 2014

by Lark Turner

A Bloomingdale home that sold above its asking price in June.

DC area home prices fell year-over-year in June for the first time since January 2012, according to a new report from RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI) released Thursday morning.

Still, the median price, $433,000, was the highest median sales price in the DC area for any month since July 2007 with the exception of June 2013. The slight price drop may say more about how crazy last year’s June was than communicate anything worrying about the regional market. Other indicators from Thursday’s report were encouraging — active listings increased year-over-year for the ninth month in a row meaning the market continues to move toward a slightly more balanced place.

That’s good news for buyers, but it’s still a seller’s market, as we reported last month after talking to RBI’s Corey Hart. At the time, Hart said inventory would need to keep increasing steadily for a while to make a real difference to buyers.

“It might not be quite as hot of a market as last year at this time when inventory was extremely low, but it’s still very tight,” Hart said. “We’re still 23 percent lower than the five-year average (of available inventory).”

Click to enlarge.

A key point from the report:

“New pending contracts … fell from this time last year and have done so for seven consecutive months. While buyer activity is lower than last year, both closed sales and pending sales continue to outpace 2011 and 2012 levels. The median sales price decreased from the prior year for the first time since January 2012, possibly tempered by the slowing pace of sales.”

Here are a few other quick takeaways:

• The average days-on-market increased year-over-year by four days to 13, still well below the 10-year June average of 24 days.
• New listings jumped 10.4 percent from last year, while active listings, a sign of inventory increasing, rose 33.6 percent.
• Closed sales dropped by 4.5 percent, which has occurred every month in 2014.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc_area_home_prices_drop_slightly_year-over-year_as_inventory_strengthens/8717