Home prices in Prince William County plunged about 40 percent in October, as the housing crisis continued to pummel the county harder than other jurisdictions in the Washington area.
The median cost of houses and condos in the county dropped from $330,000 to $188,000, according to data released this week from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. Sales in the county, Manassas and Manassas Park nearly tripled as buyers looked to scoop up relatively inexpensive property.
The area has been hit hard by foreclosures recently. One in 68 homes, or 186, has been foreclosed on in Manassas, according to September data from foreclosure-tracking Web site realtytrac.com. In Prince William, nearly 1,500 foreclosures were listed, or one in every 87 units. The national average for September was one in 475, the company reported.
Peter Morici, professor of economics at the University of Maryland, said the recent federal bailout should help free up credit and aid the housing market, but that buyers in Prince William and Manassas bought too quickly.
“Any stimulus is going to help, but [nothing] is going to bring back the good old days in those places,” he said.
He added that more than just the current credit crisis is hurting the area’s home market.
“The fact that those places are premised on cheap energy and cheap gas prices for commuting — people bought houses they couldn’t afford based on that,” he said.
In the District of Columbia, the median price per unit rose slightly from October 2007, from $392,750 to $394,450. Sales fell 11 percent, from 464 to 414.
Montgomery County saw modest changes — the median sales price fell about 10 percent, and the number sold rose 7 percent, from 633 to 678.
Prince George’s County’s median sales price decreased by 14 percent, from $302,300 to $260,000, and the total units sold decreased 13 percent, from 471 to 408. But the area has not been hit as hard as Prince William.
“To an extent, there really isn’t a viable market for them — people bought a lot of houses they couldn’t afford, and no amount of reworking mortgages” can completely solve the problem, Morici said.