If you read just the headlines in the news regarding the housing market, you would have a rosy picture of what is happening. Here are just a few headlines from this past week:
D.C.-area housing market flourishes despite coronavirus
Northern Virginia housing market seeing ‘truly staggering sales volume’
Mortgage rates hit 10th record low of 2020, further fueling the US housing market's boom
In the chart above, the supply of single family homes, shown in red, has fairly steady and fairly low over the past two years. The supply of condos has had more fluctuation from an extreme low of a 1/2 month supply to just under a 3 month supply in September.
All of these articles were written from a broad, high-level view. When you dig a little deeper, you get two different pictures.
This week I look at the condo market in Arlington compared to the single family home market. These two segments usually move loosely in the same direction - but not always as we are currently seeing.
Another way of looking at the supply is look the number of active listings. The options for a condo buyer are much higher today than a year ago - a welcome relief for many buyers.
The number of active listings is going to be a reflection of the number of new listings and how long they stay on the market. When we look at just the new listings, we can see two things. One, there has been a jump in new listings over the summer. The spring is usually the busiest time in the real estate market, however, this year because of the pandemic and the shut down, the market was shifted by several months. Summer is the new spring! The second thing to notice is the seasonal fluctuation for single family homes. This is no big surprise because home buyers are buying more than just the house, they are also buying a piece of property and that is easier to see (and looks better) in the non-winter months.
There are various reasons for these differences. Here are a few of my thoughts: