The Current DC Housing Market and a Hamilton Sequel? #heaintgonnadoit

This Washington, DC real estate market has people's heads spinning. If you're actively looking for your next home, you know exactly what I mean. At times like these, I find it helpful to dive into the numbers...Fun right!

1.) We keep getting mixed signals. On one hand, buyer's have been hit hard with the highest interest rates of the year crossing above 7% twice last week. (They're back below now) However, home buyers who are actively looking are ready to jump on the perfect home when the see it. To prove it, last week, homes went under contract at an average of just 19.6 days on market. That's nearly as fast as this time last year and the shortest average days on market in 2023...so far.

2.) Have you ever had a friend who was in a relationship you were certain was destined to fail, only to be invited to their wedding and now they have 2 beautiful kids and are about to celebrate their 10 year wedding anniversary? No? Just me? Regardless, try and follow along. That's how this market has been acting. All of your friends have been saying that they're going to wait for the inevitable crash in home prices which, most people in the industry (even real estate tangential) do not think is coming. In fact, I'll go on the record and say that the chances of the housing market collapsing are about as good as Lin-Manuel Miranda writing "Hamilton 2, the Afterlife." He ain't gonna do it.

In DC Metro (DC and surrounding MD and NoVA) there were 1,168 new listings that hit the market last week. That's down nearly 47% from this time last year. Over that same period (6/4/23-6/10/23) there were 1,319 homes that went under contract. I'm not an economist or a world class mathematician, but when 151 more people go under contract than homes hit the market, it means that at this current pace, we'll be fighting low inventory for a while and the laws of supply and demand are stronger than any move the FED can make right now.