More house hunters in the Washington market found what they wanted and could afford in February, with a spike in both pending and closed sales last month.
Listing service Bright MLS said closed sales throughout the Washington metro area were up 13% from a year ago to a 10-year high. And contracts signed to buy a home, but sales that haven’t yet closed, rose 10.3%, also reaching the highest level in a decade.
Along with rising sales, prices of what sold were largely sharply higher than a year ago.
Metro-wide, the median price of a home that sold in February was $460,000, up 7.7% from last February.
In Arlington County, Virginia, the median overall price of what sold was $635,000, up 12.4%. But the median price of a stand-alone house that sold in Arlington last month was $1.14 million, up 19.2% from last February.
Median prices were the highest in a decade for a February in both Montgomery County and Prince George’s County in Maryland, at $436,000 and $312,000, respectively.
Fairfax County’s median selling price in February was $560,000, up 13.7% from a year ago. The median price of what sold in D.C. was $590,500, up 0.3%.
The City of Alexandria saw an 8.7% decline in its median selling price, at $477,000.
A good sign for potential buyers heading into the spring housing market: New listings metro-wide last month were up 11% from a year ago.
Below is a graph showing median selling prices and number of sales over the past decade in the Washington metro area, courtesy of Bright MLS.
