Ask Eli: Arlington Single-Family and Townhouse Mid-Year Real Estate Review

This regularly-scheduled sponsored Q&A column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. Please submit your questions to him via email for response in future columns. Enjoy!

Question: How did Arlington’s real estate market perform in the first half of 2020?

Answer: What a wild year it’s been for real estate. After a huge 2019 (SFH/TH review, Condo review), the 2020 market took off in January with prices and competition up sharply. When Coronavirus hit, that momentum tapered off for a couple of months but prices remained steady because of low interest rates and low supply. The Arlington housing supply was down about 400 listings from March-June, but listing activity is surging to historically high levels in July and August, which is traditionally when we see the spring market momentum slow down.

Let’s take a look at how the single-family detached (SFD) and townhouse (TH) market performed in the first half of 2020 using some awesome charts developed by my new partner, the wonderful Alli Torban. We will take a similar look at condos next week.

Note that all of the data used in these charts is based on sales that went under contract from January-June in order to provide the most accurate reflection of the market during the first 6 months. I don’t like using the date a home sold/closed for analysis like this because closing date often lags 30-60 days behind agreement of sale (contract).

Average and median price continued to rise, but not by nearly as much as last year. The total homes transacted in the first six months dropped significantly to 710 from a previous 5-year low of 838, established in 2019.

22207 (most of North Arlington) remains the most expensive place to buy a SFD or TH and 22204 and 22206 (most of South Arlington) remain the most affordable, although we’ve seen strong appreciation in those markets over the last three years.

For new Amazon HQ2 employees hoping to find a SFD or TH to buy within walking distance of your office, your 22202 zip code offers some of the fewest purchase opportunities in the County, so you’ll want to act quickly if you find something you like.

The cost of going from a 4 BR home to a 5 BR home is significant in Arlington. This is because most new (read: expensive) homes being built have at least five bedrooms and Arlington’s older housing stock mostly floats between two and four bedrooms. Finding a house with five or more bedrooms under $1M in Arlington is a difficult task.

One of the measures I like taking to gauge market competition is the percentage of homes going under contract within the first week and how much buyers are paying relative to the asking price within that window. An incredible 41% of SFD/TH contracts were accepted within the first week this year and the average buyer paid 2% more than the asking price to secure a home that just hit the market.

The key takeaways are that good homes sell very quickly and if you love a house that has just hit the market, be prepared to pay the asking price or more to secure it because if you don’t, there’s a good chance somebody else will.

As the chart above showed, this is a fast-paced market and it got even faster in 2020 with the median days on market for SFD/TH remaining at seven days and the average dropping below three weeks.

Next week I will have condo data for you. If you’d like to discuss buying or selling strategies, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected].

If you’d like a question answered in my weekly column or to set-up an in-person meeting to discuss local real estate, please send an email to [email protected]. To read any of my older posts, visit the blog section of my website at www.EliResidential.com. Call me directly at (703) 539-2529.

Eli Tucker is a licensed Realtor in Virginia, Washington D.C., and Maryland with RLAH Real Estate, 4040 N. Fairfax Dr. #10C Arlington, VA 22203, (703) 390-9460.