Home prices in the Washington region outpaced the country in January, the latest step in a long march upward while the rest of the country’s top markets head toward another housing dip, a new report shows. Prices in the Washington region rose 0.1 percent in January from December, while the other 19 major markets fell, according to a new S&P/Case-Shiller home price report. Annually, local prices showed a growth rate of 3.6 percent, the healthiest in the country. The annual increase is far ahead of San Diego, where prices climbed 0.1 percent from January 2010, the only other January price increase among the nation’s top 20 markets.
Meanwhile, prices fell annually by an average 3.1 percent in the top markets.
Washington has posted monthly price increases in eight of the past 10 months, according to Case-Shiller. Growth dipped slightly in October and November but prices have increased every other month since April 2010. By contrast, the nation’s top markets have combined to post steady price drops since August as the homebuyer tax credit expired and caused a dramatic drop in demand.
| Area home prices keeping momentum | ||
| Monthly prices marching upward in face of national decline. | ||
| Washington region | Top 20 markets | |
| January 2010 | -0.4% | -0.4% |
| February 2010 | -0.5% | -0.9% |
| March 2010 | -0.7% | -0.5% |
| April 2010 | 2.4% | 0.8% |
| May 2010 | 1.5% | 1.3% |
| June 2010 | 1.7% | 1.0% |
| July 2010 | 1.1% | 0.6% |
| August 2010 | 0.3% | -0.2% |
| September 2010 | 0.3% | -0.7% |
| October 2010 | -0.2% | -1.3% |
| November 2010 | -0.1% | -1.0% |
| December 2010 | 0.3% | -1.0% |
| January 2011 | 0.1% | -1.0% |
| Source: S&P/Case-Shiller monthly home price indices | ||
“Month-to-month prices indicate momentum,” said Maureen Maitland, vice president of S&P Indices. “So, nationally, we’re on a downward momentum in the market … while Washington is [moving] upward.”
Washington’s ability to buck the national average’s dive into a double dip in housing prices is largely caused by a more stable employment market in combination with better demand, Maitland said. While home prices are nearing their 2009 lows in some markets and averaging closer to 2003 prices, D.C.-area home prices are averaging around their 2004 values and climbing, experts said.
“D.C. is similar to Los Angeles, New York or Chicago, where there’s not a lot of land mass to population — it’s hard to overbuild and add new inventory,” Maitland said. “To D.C.’s benefit, it didn’t overbuild in the run-up to the market collapse like you saw in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Florida.”
Real estate agent Brian Sink said the region’s lack of good, move-in-ready housing on the market is also bumping up prices. During the past month, he’s had two clients decide not to compete for houses in Northwest D.C. because other offers — in one case 10 offers — already had been submitted.
Another client wrote two offers on single-family homes and had them both rejected, while another client who renovates homes listed a four-unit residence on Capitol Hill for just under $1 million and the property was “gone as soon as the sign went up,” Sink said.
“If you don’t have a half a million bucks, don’t expect to find anything [in the District] you want to live in,” he said.
