This has been the best year for the Washington-area housing market since 2006. The market in many parts of the country may still be flat — or even worse — but things are improving around here.
About 47,400 existing homes were sold during the first half of 2011, an increase of 14 percent over the first six months of 2010. This year also has bested 2009 and 2007 by about 14 percent and has outsold 2008 by 33 percent.
And it happened without any federal tax credits.
How could this be when some parts of the country are still struggling? We have a great combination of factors in the Washington region: a good supply of homes that became a lot more affordable in recent years and enough jobs to help people buy those homes.
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Unemployment in the Washington area was 5.7 percent in May, one of the lowest rates in the country. The overall U.S. unemployment rate was greater than 9 percent. That means more buyers locally have the income to qualify for mortgages — especially important now that lenders have more stringent guidelines.
Our better job market also is helping with our foreclosure situation. Foreclosures are still a problem, with thousands of area homeowners receiving foreclosure notices each month.
But Nevada’s foreclosure problem is 10 times worse than ours. Even our relatively healthy sales market couldn’t keep up with the additional inventory that many foreclosures would produce. Fortunately, we also don’t have Nevada’s unemployment rate of 12 percent, so more of our region’s homeowners can keep up with their payments.
Instead of additional inventory to burden our market, we are enjoying a decrease in the number of homes for sale. That causes competition among buyers, which is good for home prices.
The number of homes listed for sale from January through June was down 5 percent compared to last year. Combine that with the 14 percent rise in sales activity, and you can see why area prices have risen this year.
Median sales prices were up 10 percent in the District in June, 5 percent in Loudoun and Fairfax counties and 3 percent in Montgomery County.
— Chris Sicks
• Send email to csicks@gmail.com.
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