Sellers of a typical Fairfax County single-family home or townhouse generally got more in April than a year before, while condo sellers had to settle for less, according to new data.
A total of 994 properties went to closing across the county last month, according to figures reported by MarketStats by ShowingTime based on listing activity from Bright MLS.
That’s down 35 percent from the 1,523 transactions in April 2022, when the market reached a frenzied pitch as buyers raced to beat interest-rate hikes and sellers tried to cash in before the (correctly) anticipated last-half-of-year slowdown.
The year-over-year sales decline was in line with expectations, but an ongoing dearth of inventory is helping to keep prices from a 2008-09-style freefall.
The average sales price of all the homes that went to closing in April across Fairfax was $806,672. That’s up 3.6 percent from a year before, but the increase was augmented by a larger percentage of single-family homes in the overall sales mix.
Among the three segments of the market:
• The average price of single-family homes stood at $1,053,142, up 0.9 percent from $1,044,078.
• The average price of attached homes – townhouses, rowhouses and condominiums – was up 1.7 percent from $515,905 to $524,535.
• But in the condo-only segment, the average sales price declined 5.2 percent from $397,352 to $376,800.
A total of 210 properties changed hands for more than $1 million during the month, including 18 between $2.5 million and $5 million. There were no $5-million-plus transactions during the month.
Add up the sales and prices, and total sales volume for the month across Fairfax County was $785 million, down 30 percent from $1.12 billion.
Conventional mortgages – pricier though they have become – represented the method of transacting sales in 643 cases, followed by cash (166) and VA-backed loans (166).
Inventory remains below the already low figures of a year before, with just 882 properties on the market at the end of April. The lack of availability coupled with the spring buying market is bedeviling prospective buyers.
Expect the year-over-year sales totals to continue to be down for the next few months, as the Northern Virginia market of 2022 did not begin a significant decline until mid-summer. After that, assuming inventory does not tighten further, year-over-year comparisons should be closer to one another.
Figures represent most, but not all, sales across the region. April 2023 figures are preliminary and are subject to revision.
N.Va. Homes Market Eases, Rather than Jumps, Into Spring-Summer Season: Northern Virginia’s real-estate market saw a modest increase in sales from March to April – up 3.6 percent – which might have been best news to come out of the monthly report.
“It’s reassuring to see the subtle increase in sales activity month-over-month,” said Ryan McLaughlin, CEO of the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors (NVAR), in parsing April sales data.
“Annual trends suggest that demand rises in the spring, and this year is no exception,” McLaughlin said. “What we see is consistent with recent trends over the past few months – there are fewer sales happening now than this time last year, but home prices have held steady.”
Indeed: The median sales price of homes sold in April ($690,000) was up 0.7 percent from a year before, as the lack of inventory helped those sellers who did opt to put their homes on the market. And when held up against the last pre-COVID April (2019), the median sale price had grown 23 percent from $560,000.
(Figures represent transactions in Arlington and Fairfax counties and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church.)
Comparing the spring-of-2023 market to spring-of-2022 is something of an apples-to-oranges errand. The April 2022 sales market was something of a last-minute frenzy with buyers rushing to get whatever they could in an effort to blunt spiking interest rates and sellers rushing their homes to market to beat the predicted – accurately, as it turned out – slowdown during the second half of the year.
The current market is “healthier and more predictable for buyers,” said Arshia Kia, a member of NVAR’s board of directors.
“The ability for Realtors to negotiate on behalf of client interests and problem-solve with sellers is a necessary part of the home-buying process,” Kia said.
The average amount of time required between listing and ratified sales contract – also known as “days on the market” – was 18 in April, significantly higher than a year before (no surprise there) but lower than March 2023. That month-over-month dip suggests prospective purchasers are pouncing on properly priced properties.
The number of active listings in April 2023 was 1,353, which compares to 1,638 in April 2022 and 2,508 in April 2019.
One main reason it’s so low? Homeowners who acquired mortgage financing with rock-bottom interest rates prior to the start of 2022 have no desire to give it up by selling now.
Figures represent most, but not all, sales across the region. April 2023 figures are preliminary and are subject to revision. For more data, see the Website at NVAR.com/public.
