A Hot Winter: DC-Area Housing Market Lifts Off in February

• March 11th 2020

by UrbanTurf Staff

It may have been cold last month, but the housing market in the DC region was quite hot. From record home sales to rising prices to homes selling in less than a week, the market was firing on all cylinders in February. 

The latest report by ShowingTime, using Bright MLS data, shows that the median home price in the region hit a decade-high for the month of $460,000, an 8 percent year-over-year increase. In DC proper, prices were largely flat, however values for detached houses shot up almost 30 percent. Arlington saw prices for detached homes and condos rise to their highest level in ten years. 

Despite a low inventory of homes for sale, home buyers were out in force. There were 13 percent more closed sales in the region in February than last year, hitting a decade-high for the month of 3,244 sales; in the District and Montgomery County, the volume of closed sales rose by a whopping 24 percent year-over-year.

Local listings have also been selling at a swift pace. Homes in February spent just 13 days on the market on median, and the days on market metric dropped in every local jurisdiction, including to just six days in Alexandria. The average sales price to original list price ratio came in at 98.6 percent and the region had a mere 1.2 month supply of homes for sale, the lowest for the month in a decade. 

As hot as February was for the market, it will be interesting to see how spring evolves. Interest rates dropped to historic lows earlier this month, but that move could be dampened by the coronavirus which has yet to reveal its effect on the regional housing market. 

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/pre-corona-boom-dc-area-housing-market-lifts-off-in-february/16575.