Home sales in DC and Baltimore metros reached their highest levels for a January dating back to 2007.
Last month 2,702 homes sold in the Washington, D.C. metro, with 2,073 single-family residences closing in the Baltimore metro, according to market reports from RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI).
These historically high monthly sales totals were achieved in spite of activity declines in Washington D.C. and the city of Baltimore.
In the district, January sales activity dipped by nearly one percent on a year-over-year basis, with pending sales/new contracts down by 12.1 percent. Median days on the market has dropped to 26.
The city of Baltimore saw year-over-year sales activity drop by nearly 11 percent, with the volume of new pending sales also declining, by 7.7 percent. Median days on the market stood at 46.
RBI attributes the drops in pending sales activity to the late January snowstorms.
The weather was also said to impact the volume of new listings in both metros; however, the district did see a nearly 12 percent spike in homes that hit the market during January. This listing activity played a part in D.C.’s overall inventory rising by 16.3 percent year-over-year.
In the city of Baltimore, new listings volume was down by 6.4 percent and overall inventory dropped by 0.3 percent.
Baltimore and DC prices up
While sales activity in Baltimore and the district were down on a year-over-year basis, median prices weren’t.
Most notable, the median sales price of a home in the city of Baltimore rose a whopping 47.8 percent to $102,000. Considering last January’s median price sat at $69,000, you’d think there was really nowhere for the city’s median price to go but up.
A significant gap between listing price and sales price still exists in Baltimore, with homes selling at 88.7 percent of their initial asking price. This is the largest gap among the Baltimore metro’s submarkets.
Washington D.C.’s median price in January rose by $9,000 year-over-year to $504,000.
Unlike the city of Baltimore, homes in the district sold at 97.4 percent of their original listing price, which represented the best gap in the D.C. metro region.
