Some local home-sellers these days appear more willing to cut their asking prices to get sales completed before the local market makes its turn to a lower level of activity.
A total of 8.9 percent of homes on the market across the Washington region saw a reduction in listing price during the week ending June 16, according to figures reported by the Bright MLS multiple-listing service.
That’s an increase from 8.4 percent a week before and up a more substantial 2 percentage points (from 6.9%) a year ago.
(The rates for early June split the difference – they were higher than at the similar point in the year in 2023, but lower than in 2022.)
Locally, the percentage of listing-price drops was in line with the region as a whole:
• In Fairfax County, 9.1 percent of homes saw a decline in listing price for the week, compared to 9.4 percent a week before and 5.7 percent a year ago.
• In Arlington, 9.8 percent of homes saw listing-price drops, up from 8.4 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.
Across the rest of the region, the percentage of homes that saw a listing-price drop for the week ending June 16 stood at 11.4 percent in Alexandria, 7.7 percent in Loudoun County, 8.5 percent in the District of Columbia, 8.1 percent in Montgomery County and 9.5 percent in Prince George’s County.
In Prince William County, which in Bright MLS’s categorization is counted in figures for central Virginia rather than the Washington metro area, 11.2 percent of homes saw a listing-price cut during the week.
In conversations earlier in the selling season with Bright MLS chief economist Lisa Sturtevant, she suggested that sellers in the local area were aiming high when they put homes on the market, but if they didn’t get nibbles quickly, they would reduce prices to try and build enthusiasm.
For homes coming on the market across the D.C. region the week ending June 16, the median list price of $600,000 was down 6.3 percent week-over-week but was up, if slightly (+0.1%) from a year before.
For full details, see the Website at brightmls.com/research.
