How Many People Are on the Move in the DC Area?

• August 16, 2018

by Nena Perry-Brown

ATTOM Data Solutions has released its Pre-Mover Housing Index from the second quarter of the year, and several measures are singling out the DC area as a place where a lot of people could be on the move. 

The Pre-Mover Housing Index uses data from mortgage loan applications to determine the ratio of homes likely to hit the market in a given metro area, state or county. The national average establishes an index baseline of "100"; an index number above 100 indicates that an above-average ratio of homes will hit the market in the following 90 days.

Looking at metro-level data for the 131 regions with at least 100,000 for-sale housing units, the DC area had the fifth-highest pre-mover index observed in Q2 2018 (166). Loan application data indicates that 96.1 percent of pending home purchases are intended as principal dwellings.

County-level data pinpoints where the bulk of those regional listings will hit the market, as the third, fourth and fifth highest indices were respectively observed in Loudoun County (319), Alexandria City (307), and Spotsylvania County (294). The second highest index was observed in the Charlottesville-adjacent county of Albemarle (337). 

State-wide data ranks Virginia fourth (163) and Maryland ninth (127) for states with above-average pre-mover indices. The data does not indicate where flagged households will be relocating to, although it is likely premature to assume this churn on the housing market will alleviate supply pressures regionwide based on the prevalence of inter-region migration.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/how-many-people-are-on-the-move-in-the-dc-area/14322