When I meet people and they find out what I do for a living I usually get two questions, “what are rates like”? and “how are home sales”? After a few years of less than positive answers I finally have at least some good news to report. 

It’s still a mixed bag out there but since Jan 09 sales have risen and inventory has fallen in DC, MD and VA. Now there are differences in all three areas and even in a county there are still HUGE differences from city to city.  Let’s look in general at the entire Metro area for now. Last June there were over 51,000 thousand homes for sale and less than 7500 sales. What a difference a year makes. The amount of homes for sale has dropped from over 51,000 to just under 39,000 in about a year. Days on market have decreased in most areas also though the further out you get such as Frederick and Anne Arundel the time to sell a home is still in the triple digits.

Counties like Montgomery that are even partially within the Beltway are doing much better with marketing times less than 100 days. The exception is PG which has seen very sluggish homes sales and a very steep drop in prices from top to bottom. The problem there stems from a larger glut of foreclosures than other parts of the area. Until that back log is slimmed down that will stay the way it is. Also MD hasn’t recovered yet in general when compared to VA. Virginia had the drop in their market first especially Loudon and Prince William and logically has been the first to come back. MD will come back but in my opinion not this year. 

The trend that has continued though is that while homes may be selling a bit quicker these days we are still seeing prices down from the peaks of a few years ago. In most areas this trend has been occuring for years of course but we have seen very steep drops this year even more than 2008. I have a feeling that we will continue to see futher price drops as the foreclosures and short sales will still plauge us into 2010.

Banks aren’t willing to work with homeowners enough to assist homeowners who are underwater or are stuck in high interest rate loans like an ARM that will reset in the next year or so. Loans that have PMI on it are apparently unable to refinance because MI companies aren’t willing to make new committments even though they already have these people on their books. Of course many of these companies are out of business because of all the debt from all the toxic loans they made in the bad old days. 

If some of these ARMS reset now people could actually see their rate drop but this is likely to be a temporary fix.  As our population grows this will slowly even out but this is a longer term fix. Keep an eye on the inventory of homes on the market and sales because in the end that will determine when prices rise across our region.

choicefinance.net contributing writer
Loan Officer for Maryland, Virginia, D.C.
Eric Strasser, 301-996-5001