Steve Burns
WASHINGTON (WMAL) — The D.C. Metro remains one of the hottest real estate markets in the country, but things are expected to take a turn once interest rate increases start up regularly again.
“Sales volume continues to rise. Along with that, active inventories continue to rise,” said Andrew Strauch with Metropolitan Regional Information Systems. “I think with the price increases over the last several years along with the potential threat of interest rate increases, (the challenge) is making sure there’s enough inventory on the market for interested buyers.”
To that point, Strauch said, the average home sold in the D.C. region in April stayed on the market for just 14 days. Last month’s median price of $419,250 was the highest April level in a decade, up .5% from last year and up 5.1% from March 2016.
“It appears that it’s not slowing down,” Strauch said. “I think everybody has timing awareness, because prices have recovered in the vast majority of areas, and there is this looming threat of interest rate increases.”
His advice is to buy now before what’s projected to be a smaller increase comes this fall and a bigger one comes in early 2017.
Despite the pent up demand in the region, Strauch said we have reached something of an equilibrium in prices.
“With the months of supply being 2-plus months and the days on the market being 14 days, one would expect there to be some upward pressure on pricing. But it looks like there’s just this right balance between the number of buyers and sellers coming into the market and the expectation of where the prices are and what people are willing to pay.”
Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (Photo: Wikipedia)
