District of Columbia Housing Monitor Summer 2007

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Abstract

The District of Columbia Housing Monitor provides a quarterly look at the Washington, D.C., housing market, tracking home prices, real estate listings, new construction, and affordable housing. This issue's special section reports on neighborhood-level housing price trends and highlights the continuing strong price growth in neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River.

Introduction

The quarterly District of Columbia Housing Monitor uses the most recent available data to illuminate housing market and affordable housing trends in the city. In addition, each report includes a special focus section that analyzes, in greater depth, developments that are shaping the Washington, D.C., housing landscape. In this issue, the special section looks at home sales trends in neighborhoods throughout the city through 2006.

The information presented in this report is supplemented by data provided on the NeighborhoodInfo DC web site.

Key findings:

• Sales volume for single-family homes in the fourth quarter of 2006 fell below levels one, five, and ten years earlier. Sales prices of houses and condominiums are down from one year ago. Sales of single-family homes and condominiums have continued to slow, resulting in an overall price decline. Sales of single-family homes were down 17.6 percent between the fourth quarters of 2005 and 2006, while condominium sales were off by 2.7 percent. Although condominium prices rebounded somewhat from the third quarter, real prices of both single-family homes and condominiums are down from one year earlier.
• Monthly real estate listings of single-family homes, condominiums, and cooperatives decreased slightly in the first quarter of 2007, but units continued to spend longer on the market before being sold. Average monthly real estate listings for single-family homes, condominium, and cooperative units decreased in the first quarter of 2007 but remained higher than averages between 2001 and 2005. Half of all homes for sale spent 60 days or more on the market before being sold in the first quarter of 2007, while almost a quarter were on the market 120 days or more.
• Wards 1 and 8 had the strongest price growth in single-family homes between the fourth quarters of 2005 and 2006, while Ward 2 had the steepest price decline. Condominium sales and prices grew markedly in Wards 7 and 8 in 2006. Ward 1 had the strongest growth in single-family home prices over the year, with an inflation-adjusted increase of 9.5 percent between the fourth quarters of 2005 and 2006, while Ward 8 prices were up 9.0 percent. Single-family home prices in Ward 2 continued moving downward, with a 13 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2005. Condominium sales were up 48.7 percent in Ward 7 and 82.4 percent in Ward 8. In Ward 8, condominium sales accounted for over a third of all homeownership property sales in 2006.

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The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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