Increased purchases of District homes carrying price tags of more than $1 million helped drive the average home sale price up more than 5 percent in recent months, the city’s chief financial officer said Monday.
In a report from the D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis, government economists using industry data said the three-month average selling price of a home in the District had climbed 5.4 percent from a year ago.
In recent months, the report said, the average selling price of a single-family home in the District has risen to nearly $654,000, a jump of more than $33,000 in the span of a year.
Condominium average sale prices moved to $441,527 — a 4.6 percent increase — in the same period.
“We’re in a place where people see that they’ve either kept their jobs or they’re re-employed, so they’re feeling pretty confident and they can move from the rental market,” said Bonnie Casper, president of the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors. “Inventory is way down. It’s kind of the supply-demand curve.”
Increased sales of homes and condos priced at $1 million and more helped prompt the broader 9 percent sales surge.
Single-family homes logged a nearly 4 percent bump over a three-month period, and pricey condominium sales jumped 19 percent.
The housing numbers were part of a stable of figures that have prompted District officials to crow about a burgeoning economy.
The city’s unemployment rate last week fell to its lowest level — 9.1 percent — since March 2009. The education and health sectors accounted for more than 70 percent of the past year’s job growth, the city said.
Tax collections were also up nearly 7 percent in June, with sales taxes driving much of the bump with a 31 percent surge.
But Casper said real estate agents are monitoring the threat of sweeping federal budget cuts as they prepare for a potential shift in the region’s housing market.
“The elephant in the room is the federal budget,” she said. “We’re not a one-industry town at this point, but it is clearly a major piece of the economy around here.”
Pedro Ribeiro, a spokesman for D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, said District officials are preparing for cuts by seeking to diversify the city’s economy.
“A lot of the people who are moving into the District now are coming in for private-sector jobs,” Ribeiro said. “When the federal government cuts — if they cut — we will be in a much better place to be able to absorb those cuts. If we continue to be the federal government’s company town, we’ll ebb and flow with the federal government.”
