We take a look at what is happening in the Northern Virginia real estate market.

As we enter the third month under COVID-19 restrictions, the pandemic continues to impact the local real estate market.  The Northern Virginia real estate market experienced a 31.88% decrease in homes sold compared to the same time last year.  A total of 1,622 homes sold in May 2020, a decrease below May 2019 home sales of 2,379.  This is largely due to stay at home restrictions that were in place in March and April.

Active listings decreased this month compared with 2019. Listings were down 31.87% below last year, with 1,984 active listings in May, compared with 2,912 homes available in May 2019. New listings fell by 35.36% in May, to 2,174, compared with 3,363 new listings in May of last year.  The days on market (DOM) for May 2020 was 17 days, a slight increase of 6.25% compared to 16 DOM for homes in May 2019.  On the upside for sellers, limited inventory drove up sold prices. Median home sales price increased 4.93% to $580,000 up from $552,700 in May 2019 and the average home sales price rose to $641,002 an increase of 2.34%.  Further, homes sold for greater than 99% of their original list price.

The good news is with Northern Virginia moving in to Phase 2 of re-opening this month, the market has seen a modest strengthening of new residential listings in the NVAR region, with a weekly peak of 159 homes being brought to the market –the highest level since the pandemic hit in early March.

It will be interesting to see how moving into Phase 2 and 3 will impact the real estate market statistics for June and July.