The Fairfax area’s luxury housing sector is holding up slightly better than the overall real estate market, according to a new data analysis.
Sales prices for the top 5% of the D.C. region’s market increased 2.3% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2025, according to a new report issued by multiple-listing service Bright MLS.
Though the uptick exceeds the 2% year-over-year increase reported for the overall D.C. market, it’s the lowest increase for the luxury segment across all areas of the Mid-Atlantic, except for Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Each quarter, Bright MLS determines the price point at which 5% of homes sell for more and 95% for less. For the second quarter of 2025 across the Washington region, the minimum home value to be included in that category was $1.8 million.
That price point led Bright MLS’s Mid-Atlantic coverage area by a significant margin. The top 5% of home sales in its other areas for the first quarter represents a minimum sales price of:
- $1.175 million for the Maryland’s Eastern Shore
- $1.15 million for the Delaware-Maryland coastal area
- $1.075 million for the Philadelphia metro area
- $999,999 for the Baltimore metro area
- $949,974 for North Central Virginia
- $800,290 for Southern Maryland
- $650,000 for the Maryland-West Virginia panhandle
- $640,000 for Central Pennsylvania
McLean’s 22101 ZIP code had the third most luxury-tier home sales in the Mid-Atlantic for the quarter, with the 45 transactions representing 38% of all homes sold in the ZIP code for the period.
McLean came in behind the zip codes for Princeton, New Jersey (08540), which had 66 luxury sales, and northwest D.C. (20007), which had 58 sales. Rounding out the top five were Wayne, Pennsylvania (19087) with 43 and Bethesda (20817) with 42.
The only other Northern Virginia ZIP code to make the top 10 was Arlington’s 22207, which is contiguous to McLean’s 22101 at the Arlington-Fairfax county line. It landed at seventh on the list, with 37 luxury-tier sales.
While the high prices involved in the top 5% of all market transactions limit the pool of potential purchasers, activity continued at a fair pace for the quarter, Bright MLS analysts reported.
“Luxury buyers still need to act quickly,” they said. “In the overall housing market, the median days on market has generally been slowing, but the pace of market activity in the luxury market is still brisk.”
In the second quarter, luxury homes spent a median of just nine days on the market between listing and ratified sales contract across the Mid-Atlantic. They’re being snapped up faster than the overall market as a whole — something rarely seen.
Even in the D.C. region, where concerns about an economic slowdown resulting from federal workforce cuts are impacting the market, the median number of days on the market for luxury homes during the quarter was just 11.
That turnaround from listing to a contract is longer than all other Bright MLS regions in the luxury category, but it’s still quite brisk for high-cost properties.
In another sign of strength at the top of the market, the average ratio of sold price to listing price was higher than in the overall market for the quarter.
In both cases, sellers received more than asking price, suggesting they are correctly anticipating market conditions and pricing accordingly.
Cash buyers accounted for more than one-third of all luxury home purchasers in the Mid-Atlantic during the quarter, about the same share as in 2024 and higher than the market as a whole.
In the Eastern Shore, where vacation homes predominate, more than half the luxury properties were purchased for cash during the second quarter.
Bright MLS Chief Economist Lisa Sturtevant said it makes sense that the local area’s high-end housing market might persevere through the current economic uncertainty better than the other 95% of the market.
“Many people are feeling anxious about their own personal financial situations, and that uncertainty is keeping them from making the decision to buy a home,” Sturtevant said of the broader market.
Higher-income buyers are “still feeling more economically secure” and are “accounting for a bigger share of housing market activity this summer,” she said.
In addition to the luxury market, the report each quarter analyzes the ultra-luxury market — the top 1% of all transactions, price-wise, in each subsection of the Mid-Atlantic.
McLean’s 22101 zip code had 13 sales at that price level for the quarter — the only Northern Virginia zip code to crack the top 10 in ultra-luxury sales.
While only seventh overall in ultra-luxury sales, 22101 did have the most expensive home sold in the Mid-Atlantic during the spring quarter: “Stratford House,” an early-1970s French provincial home backing to the Potomac River on Crest Lane, sold for just under $14.1 million.
Originally built for historic Bowman Distillery owner A. Smith Bowman, the home features 9,217 square feet of space on 4.1 acres of land, with eight bedrooms and five full and two half baths. It was listed by Piper Yerks and Ben Roth of Washington Fine Properties for $18.5 million.
After the sale in May, the Washington Business Journal reported the 50-year-old property may be torn down to make way for new development.
The buyer — Patrick Latessa, founder of the McLean luxury home builder Galileo Signature — told the WBJ that the new home will be limited to under 20,000 square feet but still include “all the features of a luxury property”:
chef’s kitchen, spa-inspired baths, smart-home systems, car collector’s garage, golf simulator, home theater, gym and spa, wine room and guest quarters. The outdoors will be a focus, with a pool, gardens, veranda, kitchen and gathering spaces that “fully embrace the beauty and serenity of the Potomac.”
Design, permitting and construction are expected to take about two years.
Photo of Crest Lane property via Washington Fine Properties
