"Washington's for-sale housing market has largely outperformed the national downturn,
and a strong regional economy will cushion the soft housing sector
and position it for a strong rebound."
-- MRIS Trends in Housing, Midyear 2008 Report
If you're in the market to buy or sell a home in the D.C. or Northern Virginia area, you need all the information you can get. More than that, you need quality, reliable local information based on facts and figures, not sensationalized newspaper, magazine and television reporting hyping the ups and downs of the market to gain readership and sell advertising space.
Metropolitan Regional Information Systems (MRIS), the company that runs the Multiple Listing Service for the D.C. metropolitan area has just released its Trends in Housing Midyear 2008 Report. This report features an analysis of the regional economy, an examination of regional housing data and a review of trends, and discussion of the housing sector's impact on other industries.
Some of the significant findings include:
- Washington D.C. metropolitan area has 4th largest job base in the country
- Payroll employment increased by 26,500 jobs from May 2007-May 2008
- Washington area has the lowest unemployment rate among major metro areas -- 3.5%
- After sluggish 1st quarter, Washington housing market began to pick up steam in 2nd quarter 2008
- D.C., Arlington, and Alexandria experienced essentially flat prices from previous year
- Inner ring of suburbs (Fairfax County, Fairfax City, Falls Church) experienced 7.5% twelve month declines in prices
- Outer ring of suburbs (Loudoun, Prince William counties) experienced 23.7% decline in prices over 12 months.
There's much much more in this 24 page report, including information on how foreclosures are affecting the market, information on new legislation affecting the housing sector, graphs and charts, and predictions for the upcoming years.
Would you like a copy of the full report? Send me an e-mail at brian@brianblock.com requesting it or leave a comment on this post.
Contact Brian Block, REALTOR/Attorney: Licensed in Virginia & Washington D.C. (703) 626-0715. If you are interested in purchasing a property in Northern Virginia including Arlington County, Alexandria City, Annandale, Burke, D.C., Fairfax County, Falls Church City, Lorton, Springfield, Washington D.C., contact Brian today.
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Brian, the DC area is lucky to have a huge employer, the federal government! And for the past eight years of not just big, but huge, government, the real estate market has benefited.