The supply of new homes is also tight, especially close in -- for builders these days, "close in" means anything east of Leesburg in Virginia, anyplace in Montgomery County, and practically to the Chesapeake Bay. Builders try to manage their supply according to their ability to deliver and sell the homes.
"It's as good as it's ever been here," said Dave Graham, president of the Washington division of Pulte Homes Inc., the country's largest builder. "Two years ago, we didn't have waiting lists like we have now." Graham said the company has about five people on a waiting list for every home.
But supply has gone up in the single-family resale market. And coupled with that, there seems to be a drop in demand, although that's not as easily measured.
"There are fewer buyers out there," said Welch of Re/Max Allegiance. "You can feel it. I think people are uneasy about what's going to happen with the election, uneasy about gas prices, uneasy about the war, about what's coming around the corner. They're taking a break."
Some attribute the slowdown to a normal autumn lull. Spring is the hottest time of the year for real estate. September tends to be a lost month, agents say, especially the early part of the month, when people are concentrating on getting back into work after the summer, and settling the kids into school rather than on real estate. In terms of sales, though, September usually comes in fourth place after March, April and October.
"Usually in the fall you see a bit of an increase in inventory," said Thomas R. Kunz, president and chief executive of Century 21 Real Estate, discussing the Washington area market. "And there's been no dramatic increase in days on market."
In higher price ranges, though, agents report an uptick in the number of days properties are staying on the market. "I'm looking at the listings for Bethesda now," Jane Fairweather, an agent with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Bethesda, said last week. "Here's what I see priced between $800,000 and $900,000: 279 days on market, 83 days, 16 days, 118 days, 56 days, 17 days, 2 days, 55 days, 30, 45, 27, 67, 120."
Although many agents report anecdotally that homes are remaining on the market longer, statistics from the area's multiple listing service show days on market for all properties relatively flat for most local jurisdictions in September.
When conditions come together the way they have now, home prices tend not to go up.
"Prices have flattened out," Fairweather said. "I'm doing more price reductions now than I've done in the last two years."
Agents say, though, that even with price reductions, it's hard to gauge whether house values are actually going down because some homes were over-priced to start. Some sellers have been jacking up their prices over the last comparable sale, a strategy that may have worked in the spring but won't work now, agents say.
Stephen S. Fuller, local economy expert and professor of public policy at George Mason University, attributes the slowdown to recent Fed hikes of short-term rates and mortgage rates edging up over 6 percent in the summer before heading back down.
"It's just a momentary blip," he said, saying people's expectations have been skewed by the insanity of the spring.
Fuller predicts the local housing market will continue to sizzle over the next few years. He discounts the idea that the market is past its peak.
