Add up the sales and prices, and Fairfax County’s home-sales volume for January was just shy of $400 million and down ever so slightly from a year before.
A total of 522 properties went to closing for the month, according to figures reported Feb. 12 by MarketStats by ShowingTime based on listing activity from Bright MLS.
That’s off 5.4 percent from the 552 transactions recorded in January 2023.
Sales prices, however, were up in all three segments of the market, with the overall average standing at $764,416, an increase of 6.75 percent.
Among the three legs of the stool:
• The average sales price of single-family homes stood at $1,089,871, up 11.5 percent.
• The average sales price of attached homes (townhouses, rowhouses and condominiums) was $510,051, up 4.4 percent.
•. The average sales price of condominiums alone was $393,457, up 6.8 percent.
A total of 86 properties changed hands for more than $1 million, including eight for more than $2.5 million and one for more than $5 million.
Add it all up, and total sales volume for the month was $399,972,709, down one-quarter of a percent from $401,023,879 a year before.
Transactions consummated during the month spent an average of 26 days between listing and ratified contract, an improvement from 35 days a year before, and garnered 99.3 percent of listing price, up from 97.1 percent.
Conventional mortgages represented the method of transacting sales in 333 cases, followed by cash (113) and VA-backed loans (48).
Inventory remains a key challenge, with the 646 homes on the market at the end of January representing a decline of nearly 16 percent from a year before. Having a smaller pool of properties is simultaneously constraining sales and propping up prices.
Pending sales in January were down about 14 percent from a year ago, suggesting the winter market will continue to be soft until, potentially, tailwinds arrive in spring.
Figures represent most, but not all, homes on the market. All figures are preliminary, and are subject to revision.
Another Year for Million-Dollar Average Sales Price in Fairfax: Though down for a month before, January’s average single-family home-sales price was solid enough to surmount the million-dollar mark for the fourth year in a row and the 10th time in 11 months.
The average sales price for January stood at $1,089,871, according to new data reported by MarketStats by ShowingTime based on listing activity from Bright MLS, as analyzed by the GazetteLeader.
January’s average price was down slightly from December, but was up 11.5 percent year-over-year.
The all-time record for average sales prices in Fairfax County had been set in August 2023 at $1,122,304, then declined 11 percent in September to $993,138. Since then, however, it has spent four months in seven figures.
The high prices are fueled, in part, by a lack of inventory that is causing buyers to either sit out the market or, if they dive in, open their checkbooks to pay high prices.
That strength is buoyed not so much by huge swarms of buyers on the market, but by active listings down significantly compared to historic norms.
The Fairfax County market first surpassed the $1 million average in October 2021, then after a decline below it that November stayed in the seven-figure club for eight consecutive months. In August 2022, however, the market dropped below the million-dollar average for six of the ensuing seven months before again surpassing it for a six-month run beginning in March 2023.
The rundown, rounded to the nearest thousand dollars:
• January 2024: $1,090,000.
• December 2023: $1,096,000.
• November 2023: $1,075,000.
• October 2023: $1,051,000.
• September 2023: $993,000.
• August 2023: $1,122,000.
• July 2023: $1,082,000.
• June 2023: $1,096,000.
• May 2023: $1,034,000.
• April 2023: $1,119,000.
• March 2023: $1,077,000.
• February 2023: $979,000.
• January 2023: $977,000.
• December 2022: $1,009,000.
• November 2022: $987,000.
• October 2022: $991,000.
• September 2022: $964,000.
• August 2022: $973,000.
• July 2022: $1,043,000.
• June 2022: $1,071,000.
• May 2022: $1,051,000.
• April 2022: $1,044,000.
• March 2022: $1,119,000.
• February 2022: $1,030,000.
• January 2022: $1,062,000.
• December 2021: $1,001,000.
• November 2021: $937,000.
• October 2021: $1,034,000.
