Pending Sales Activity During Month Showed Seasonal Trends

Rockville, MD – (September 12, 2011) – The following analysis of the Washington, D.C. Metro Area housing market has been prepared by housing market expert Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel, based on the August 2011 RBI Pending Home Sales Index™ released today:

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OVERVIEW

The summer home sales season in the Washington, D.C. metro area market finished with the highest number of signed contracts for August in four years.   There were 4,169 contracts signed in August 2011, 8.6% less than the 4,563 contracts signed in July, but consistent with seasonal trends.  New pending sales were 19.9% above the August 2010 level but that increase is exaggerated due to the dearth of activity in the months following the expiration of the federal homebuyers tax credit in April 2010.   The median sales price for August 2011 showed a similar seasonal pattern, declining 3.8% to $356,000 from $370,000 in July 2011 but was essentially unchanged from August 2010. 

Though a core part of our mission here at RBI is to provide stats and trends as they pertain to the local real estate market, we are mindful to keep an eye on what is happening at the national level as well. We've recently begun frequenting the Economists' Outlook, the National Association of Realtors® blog containing timely and comprehensive analysis of national market trends. A recent post by George Ratiu contained some interesting insights about first time home-buyer trends.

While the investment property buyer makes up nearly 20% of the general homebuyer group, 4.1% of first-time homebuyers in July purchased a home for investment. Ratiu attributes this in part to the historically low interest rates and high affordability. This number is line with the average for the year of 4.2%, but it is up from the 3.6% figure for July of 2010. Click here to see the entire post on NAR's site.