New data show overall home prices in the Greater Washington metro region slid more than 10 percent last year, in step with results in other parts of the country where real estate prices continued to tumble.
Prices for single-family homes in the area, including several farther-out counties, were down 10.89 percent this January compared with January 2007, according to Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller HomePrice Index. Prices in the nation’s 20 major metropolitan markets, including Washington, dropped 10.71 percent.
But market conditions in the D.C. area are considerably more complex than the index indicates, experts assert. Price trends varied neighborhood by neighborhood over the last year, with some enclaves experiencing 2 percent increases and others — usually those further from the city — falling 20 percent.
“I know that in the District, prices are not going down 10 percent; they have been stable” and have increased slightly for detached homes, said Paul Carrillo, assistant professor of economics at George Washington University.
In January 2008, average prices in D.C. increased 11.46 percent over the previous January, said real estate broker and Evers and Co. owner Donna Evers, relying on data from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, which tracks sales of all housing types.
In some ZIP codes in Fairfax County, however, prices dropped as much as 20 percent, Carrillo said. Overall, from January 2007 to January 2008, average prices in Fairfax fell 7.15 percent, according to MRIS data.
It “really depends on the neighborhood,” Carrillo said, and the “type of credit people had when they bought their homes.” In the Tysons Corner area, in Fairfax County, prices have held steady, but in other areas with many subprime loans, prices have plummeted.
The Case-Shiller Home Price Index compares the recent sales price of the single-family, detached homes with their earlier sale price, giving different weight to the data depending on the time between sales and other factors. The index also includes counties farther outside the metro area, such as Calvert, Charles, Frederick, Clarke, Stafford, Spotsylvania, Warren, Faquier, and Jefferson, W.Va., which Carrillo said have downward trends similar to parts of Prince William and Prince George’s counties.
