Home Sales Slide, Inventory Surges: DC Area Market Shifts in Buyers' Favor

• 11:03 AM EDT

by UrbanTurf Staff

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The DC area housing market lost steam in August, with buyers retreating on multiple fronts, per new figures from Bright MLS. 

Just 3,872 homes changed hands regionwide last month, per a Bright MLS report out today, down 9.2% from August 2025. Buyer interest cooled by other measures too: new pending sales fell 11.5%, and in-person showings totaled 82,793, a 7.3% drop from a year earlier. 

Mortgage rates approaching 7% appear to be the main culprit, and Bright MLS doesn't expect much relief in the near term -- its forecast points to a quieter fall, with thinner buyer and seller activity, more modest price appreciation, and homes sitting on the market longer before they sell.

Even as fewer buyers stepped up, sellers kept their properties on the market, and that has started to tip the scales toward buyers. New listings were actually down 3.8% from last August, but because so few of those homes found buyers, the total number of homes for sale swelled 11.3% to 11,280 -- among the highest inventory levels the region has seen in some time. Nowhere is that inventory glut more visible than in the condo market: available condo listings surged 28% year-over-year, and supply now stands at 4.3 months -- more than double the 2.15-month supply of single-family homes. 

Home values, meanwhile, are still edging higher, with last month's median sale price landing at $640,000, a 2.4% increase from a year ago. That headline number obscures a mixed picture underneath, however: condo prices actually slid 5.7% year-over-year to a median of $386,500, while detached-home prices were essentially unchanged at $835,000. 

With supply piling up and buyers pulling back, the next few months should show whether sellers start adjusting their asking prices or simply wait for rates to ease.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/home_sales_slide_inventory%20surges_dc_area_market_shifts/24982.