DC Area Home Prices Reach Highest May Level Since 2005

• June 10th 2015

by Tianna Mañón

DC-area home prices rose to their highest level in a decade for the month of May as the region’s housing market stayed hot.

The median sales price for the region rose to $435,000, up 1.2 percent over last year, according to a report released by the real estate data firm RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI). It was also the highest monthly median sales price for any month since June 2013.

Falls Church reported a year-over-year median sales price decline of 8.3 percent, despite jumping dramatically in April, when prices there were up 36.2 percent over April 2014. At the other end of the spectrum, Fairfax City showed the biggest jump in its median sales price, which rose 22.5 percent over last year. In DC proper, the median sales price rose to $560,000, up 5.7 percent from last May.

Echoing the market’s strong performance over the past few months, nearly every indicator showed growth. Like prices, new contracts rose to their highest May level in a decade, up 8.4 percent from May 2014. Closed sales were up 6.2 percent, or 285 sales, from last year. It’s the sixth consecutive month of year-over-year increases in closed sales, and the third consecutive month in which all market segments have shown an increase in closed sales year-over-year. There have been 18,459 closed sales in the area this year, up 11 percent from the same period last year.

The only slow point in the report was the amount of time homes are spending on the market, which went up slightly. It’s now 12 days, up one day from last May.

The region’s strong price growth wasn’t deterred by rising inventory and the increasing number of active listings. There were 12,083 active listings at the end of May, a 15.8 percent increase from last year. May inventories were at the second-highest level in 42 months and new listings were at the second-highest level in five years. Condo inventories showed the biggest growth of any home type, jumping 21 percent year-over-year.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc_metro_home_prices_reach_highest_may_level_in_decade/9985.