Spring has sprung in the local real estate market. You may notice more listings coming to the market in what is traditionally a busy season for residential real estate, but the homes for sale are moving quickly and for higher prices.
“New listings jumped in our region in February compared to January,” according to Reggie Copeland, president of the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors® (NVAR) and principal broker of C.R. Copeland Real Estate, “but even with a 38.5% month-over-month increase in new listings, buyers still snapped them up quickly.”
There were fewer homes on the market in February compared to a year ago, and more than half (846) of the 1,355 home sales in the NVAR region in February were on the market for 10 days or less. “Long gone are the days when buyers could go home and ‘sleep on it’,” Copeland said.
There were 896 homes available for sale in the NVAR region in February, compared to 1,579 in February 2021.
"That’s a 43% difference, making buying especially challenging,” said Copeland. “This also affects the sellers that are interested in moving since many sellers determine whether or not to list their home based on concern about finding another place to move to,” Copeland added.
Local Data Shows Home Prices Continue to Rise
- The average home sale price rose by 8% compared with last February, to $714,481. The February 2021 average sale price was $661,391.
- The median sold price of homes this February, which was $607,375, rose by 6.6% compared to the median price of $570,000 in February 2021.
- The average sold price of homes in February in the City of Alexandria was $649,356, an increase of 5.7% compared to February 2021.
- The average sold price of homes in February in Fairfax County was $713,873, an increase of 8.5 percent over a year ago.
Data from the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors