Home-buyer activity across the GazetteLeader coverage area last month was highest in the town of Vienna, according to new data, but proved slower in many other areas.
Things were slightly better across the broader Fairfax County market, as prospective buyers came out of winter hibernation in search of homes despite the current inventory crunch.
The T3 Home-Demand Index of Bright MLS uses a variety of data points and a proprietary formula to settle on a monthly score for buyer interest all the way down to the ZIP-code level. It is a forward-looking counterpart to rear-view-mirror monthly sales data.
The open-ended scorecard gauges buyer-interest conditions as High with any score above 130; Moderate from 110-129; Steady from 90-109; and Slow from 70-89. Any score less than 70 suggests the market of available homes is limited.
In the latest data, released May 11 and looking at the market in late April, Fairfax’s score of 102 was up from 94 a month before, suggesting that springtime had encouraged buyers to come out.
No GazetteLeader-area ZIP codes recorded activity in either the High or Moderate categories, but Vienna’s 22180 led the pack with 101 (Steady).
In the Slow category were Oakton’s 22124 (89), Vienna’s 22181 (87) and McLean’s 22102 (79). In the Limited category were McLean’s 22101 (64), Vienna’s 22182 (61), Great Falls’s 22066 (40) and Dunn Loring’s 22027 (also 40).
The regional score in the new data was 90, up from 83 a month before and 77 two months prior.
Three other localities were in triple digits for May: Arlington (161, up from 144 a month before); Alexandria (119, down from 128); and the city of Falls Church (115, up from 94).
Further down the list were the District of Columbia (95, up from 90); Prince George’s County (88, up from 81); Loudoun County (87, up from 74); Montgomery County (78, up from 72); and Frederick County (60, up from 49).
While most of the jurisdictions were up month-over-month, all were down – most substantially – from a year before. Both Arlington and Fairfax counties had declines of around 30 percent from spring-of-2022 figures.
For full details, see the Website at www.homedemandindex.com.
More Va. Realtors Expect Prices to Rise in Coming Months: Limited inventory and a growing corps of prospective buyers wanting in on home-ownership should push home-sales prices higher across Virginia in coming months, according to a new survey.
That bullish sentiment compares to a more negative outlook just a month ago.
The monthly survey conducted by the Virginia Realtors trade organization for April 26-May 1, reported on May 4, saw 50 percent of the more than 1,000 respondents believing that home prices in their community will be higher in three months’ time than they are today.
That’s up from 38 percent a month before.
Sixteen percent of respondents said they believe prices will decline, down from 29 percent a month before and off from nearly 45 percent at the start of the year.
Thirty percent of respondents say they believe prices will remain largely unchanged, a view that itself was unchanged from a month prior.
Among those participating in the online survey were more than 800 Virginia Realtors who had taken part in at least one transaction over the preceding 30 days.
