WASHINGTON — Lack of inventory, or amount of houses and condos for sale in the District, continues to plague D.C.’s housing market and it’s not getting any better.
Long & Foster now reports there is just a 1.9 month supply of homes for sale in the District.
What exactly does that mean?
“Essentially what it means is that if no other home comes on the market, it will take 1.9 months at the current rate that homes are being absorbed into the market for there to be no homes on the market,” Larry “Boomer” Foster at Long & Foster Real Estate told WTOP.
A six month supply of homes for sale is what it takes to be considered a balanced market.
Tight inventory isn’t necessarily a bad thing, depending on what side of the transaction you’re on.
“It’s a great number if you have a home to sell and a place to go. But when you have that little bit of supply, there is not a lot to choose from when you have the amount of demand that we have in our marketplace right now,” Foster said.
But Foster also says despite low inventory conditions for three years and counting, there is no room for complacency among sellers. Most buyers looking in D.C. are looking for homes that are move-in ready. A house that isn’t correctly priced or needs a lot of updates may still be difficult to sell, he said.
A home in D.C. that hit the market in July went under contract in an average of 24 days, with many listings getting multiple offers and selling much faster.
Sellers in D.C. got, on average, 99.9 percent of their asking price. The median price of what sold in the District in July was $568,000.
