Arlington per-square-foot sales prices for homes hovered just below $500 in November, the second-highest in the region and up ever so slightly from a year ago.
For the month, the average cost per square foot for the 145 residential properties changing hands in Arlington was $498, according to figures reported Dec. 10 by MarketStats by ShowingTime. That was up by just under 1% from a year before, but slightly trailed the average of $504 recorded in Arlington for the first 11 months of the year.
In Arlington and the rest of the D.C. region, Bright MLS chief economist Lisa Sturtevant described the state of the market in November as “cautious.”
“Economic uncertainty and ongoing affordability challenges remain the biggest constraints on the Mid-Atlantic housing market as we head into the final stretch of 2025,” she said.
Only D.C. had a higher per-square-foot cost for the month. Its rate of $501 was down 4% from a year before.
Among other major local jurisdictions, average per-square-foot rates for November were $489 in Falls Church (+5.8%), $468 in Alexandria (-1.1%), $366 in Fairfax County (-0.3%), $293 in Loudoun County (-1.4%) and $254 in Prince William County (+1.6%).
For the Mid-Atlantic region as a whole, MarketStats by ShowingTime reported an average per-square-foot cost of $252, up 1.6% from a year before. For the first 11 months of the year, the average cost of $256 was up 2.8% year-over-year.
The median sales price for all properties that went to closing in Arlington was $790,000, an increase of 13.7%. The bump was boosted, in part, by the larger percentage of single-family homes in the overall sales mix compared to a year before (41% vs. 34%).
All three segments of the market showed increases in average prices:
- The average price reported for single-family detached homes was $1,423,039, up 0.7%
- The average price in the attached-home sector (townhouses, rowhouses, condominiums) was $595,173, up 3.8%
- The average price in the condo-only sector was $503,204, up 2.3%
Total sales volume for the month was $136.44 million countywide, an increase of 2.8% from a year before.
Homes that went to closing in November in Arlington spent an average of 34 days between listing and ratified sales price, up from 28 a year ago, and garnered 97.5% of the listing price, down from 98.2% a year before.
Bright MLS is the region’s multiple-listing service. In its Dec. 10 update, it said prospective homebuyers are eager but not always willing to start their search.
“There is still a considerable amount of pent-up demand — particularly among first-time buyers,” Sturtevant said. “However, many of these would-be buyers are waiting for a more favorable combination of mortgage rates and home prices before entering the market.”
In Arlington, November ended with 361 listings available, up 36% from a year before. That’s in line with the 34% increase reported across the region.
Across the region, according to Bright MLS, the 3,355 closed sales for the month were down 6.4% year-over-year in November, but the median sales price of $630,000 was up 5%, with higher-end buyers driving the increase.
The strongest regional conditions were in areas of Northern Virginia, with weaker conditions in D.C. and the Maryland suburbs, analysts said.
For the first 11 months of the year, sales across the D.C. region were down 0.8% to 45,476.
Looking ahead to 2026, lower mortgage rates and somewhat softer prices should start to bring more buyers back into the market, especially in the region’s more affordable submarkets, Bright MLS forecasts.
“As borrowing costs edge down and income growth gradually improves, some of the affordability pressures that weighed on 2025 activity are expected to ease,” analysts said.
