Home prices across the country took another hit in October, posting the biggest year-over-year decline on record, according to figures released Tuesday by the National Association of Realtors. Locally, prices in Northern Virginia saw an even sharper dip, while prices in Montgomery County and the District increased.
Nationally the average home price dropped to $221,000 in October, a number well below local sales numbers. The average home price in Northern Virginia dropped to about $524,000 in October, a decrease of 4.7 percent over the previous October. Though steep the October decline is still less than that in September, which saw a drop of 5.71 percent — the current record. Home prices in the District climbed 3.7 percent, and in Montgomery County they spiked 5.9 percent.
Northern Virginia’s is seeing sharp declines because it saw some of the biggest price increases during the height of the frenzied housing market and the region is in the process of “normalizing,” said Jill Landsman, a spokeswoman for the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors.
Landsman said she expects the market to begin to rebound in the spring.
“January and February won’t be rebounding enormously,” she said. “It will be more of the same, but in March that’s when all the buyers start looking.”
At the national level, the Realtors association continued to express faith that housing prices would rebound, saying buyers are just gun shy in the face of an uncertain market.
“The demographics of our growing population, historically low and declining mortgage interest rates and healthy job creation mean the wherewithal is there to buy homes in most of the country, but many buyers remain on the sidelines,” said David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist. “After a period of price adjustment, we’ll see more confidence in the market and a lift to home sales should be apparent in the first quarter of 2007.”
