SPRING MARKET!! What's the vibe?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow it’s crazy that 1.5 million isn’t enough to buy a house in Arlington!

It is, but it won't be very nice. If you go just a couple miles to the west or south, you'll find exceptionally nice properties at that price, but many folks are obsessed with having that N Arl address.

Nah I’m obsessed with my 20 min door to door N Arlington to DC commute during rush. Priceless. Also fly regularly for work and getting to DCA during rush in 10 minutes is also perfection.

You pay for the convenience and boy do you get it.

Interesting, but those times don't hold for the vast majority of N Arl.

+1

Unless you are living in Rosslyn and working in Georgetown ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow it’s crazy that 1.5 million isn’t enough to buy a house in Arlington!

It is, but it won't be very nice. If you go just a couple miles to the west or south, you'll find exceptionally nice properties at that price, but many folks are obsessed with having that N Arl address.

Nah I’m obsessed with my 20 min door to door N Arlington to DC commute during rush. Priceless. Also fly regularly for work and getting to DCA during rush in 10 minutes is also perfection.

You pay for the convenience and boy do you get it.

Interesting, but those times don't hold for the vast majority of N Arl.

+1

Unless you are living in Rosslyn and working in Georgetown ...

If you live near Rt 50 in Arlington it also holds

[Anonymous]

Houses in areas with little availability are going under contract within a day. But otherwise, market is stalled. Lots of "price improvements" on houses that are surprising.

[Anonymous]

Very surprised in my neighborhood that houses that sat all summer and were delisted in December got relisted in the past month and have all sold. All in the $2.5-$3.5 range and all decent but had slightly at least one undesirable feature- bad street, corner lot, only one bedroom upstairs, 80s house on a block of 30s and 40s houses, etc.

So in my neighborhood at least I’m confused by the market. I thought things would sit but instead it feels like they’re flying, especially compared to last spring.

I drive through a few other areas en route to work with “lower” price points ($900k-$2M) and that stuff is not moving at all. To me it feels like there are two different real estate universes operating in parallel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been actively looking in Falls Church / N Arlington area and houses are being bid $100-200k over asking with a few places that have been bought sight unseen.

We’re wondering if we should renew our lease so that we can resume our search in a few months / next year.

What’s your price range

$1.3-1.5M. It's so bad in VA that we're actually looking at buying in D.C.

Watch the 1.1 to 1.3 listings like a hawk (or have your agent doing this), see it immediately the day it goes live and your agent can take you, and bid way up with an escalation clause.

Better yet: drive your desired neighborhood a couple of times per week and watch for houses with lots of work trucks but that seem to be otherwise quiet. If you have a dog you can do this less conspicuously. On our dog’s billion walks per day we started to notice a hour with handyman trucks, then painting company trucks, then the garage would be open and we realized it looked really cleaned out. The lights were never on at night and I told DH we had to move money around and call our mortgage broker.

When the house was listed, we had already been pre-approved for the mortgage and our real estate agent had already contacted their real estate agent. We got the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow it’s crazy that 1.5 million isn’t enough to buy a house in Arlington!

It is, but it won't be very nice. If you go just a couple miles to the west or south, you'll find exceptionally nice properties at that price, but many folks are obsessed with having that N Arl address.

Nah I’m obsessed with my 20 min door to door N Arlington to DC commute during rush. Priceless. Also fly regularly for work and getting to DCA during rush in 10 minutes is also perfection.

You pay for the convenience and boy do you get it.

Interesting, but those times don't hold for the vast majority of N Arl.

Also depends where one works in DC. There is traffic in DC proper

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow it’s crazy that 1.5 million isn’t enough to buy a house in Arlington!

It is, but it won't be very nice. If you go just a couple miles to the west or south, you'll find exceptionally nice properties at that price, but many folks are obsessed with having that N Arl address.

Nah I’m obsessed with my 20 min door to door N Arlington to DC commute during rush. Priceless. Also fly regularly for work and getting to DCA during rush in 10 minutes is also perfection.

You pay for the convenience and boy do you get it.

Interesting, but those times don't hold for the vast majority of N Arl.

+1

Unless you are living in Rosslyn and working in Georgetown ...

That would be 10 minutes. N.Arlington near Glebe rd. access to GW Pkwy is pretty fast getting to Gtown, Foggy Bottom, K st.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As above poster, seeing well priced solid houses go quickly in NWDC. This seems partially due to overall low inventory and pent up demand (some people need to buy this season). So it will be interesting to see how things play out over next 2 months as the people who have to buy are off the market. But the margin of error is slim: houses with a couple of imperfections that would’ve also been scooped quickly a few years ago, as well as those with pricing that is too aspirational, seem to sit. It seems like some sellers/agents are guarding against this by pricing low, which is why you are seeing bidding wars relative to ask price.

Good to see DC market is moving. DC prices definitely stagnated compared to suburbia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been actively looking in Falls Church / N Arlington area and houses are being bid $100-200k over asking with a few places that have been bought sight unseen.

We’re wondering if we should renew our lease so that we can resume our search in a few months / next year.

What’s your price range

$1.3-1.5M. It's so bad in VA that we're actually looking at buying in D.C.

Watch the 1.1 to 1.3 listings like a hawk (or have your agent doing this), see it immediately the day it goes live and your agent can take you, and bid way up with an escalation clause.

Better yet: drive your desired neighborhood a couple of times per week and watch for houses with lots of work trucks but that seem to be otherwise quiet. If you have a dog you can do this less conspicuously. On our dog’s billion walks per day we started to notice a hour with handyman trucks, then painting company trucks, then the garage would be open and we realized it looked really cleaned out. The lights were never on at night and I told DH we had to move money around and call our mortgage broker.

When the house was listed, we had already been pre-approved for the mortgage and our real estate agent had already contacted their real estate agent. We got the house.

I had done similar things scouting the area I would be interested in and specifically any houses that looked worked on and empty. Sometimes they have a sign out saying "coming soon" to motivate potential buyers to do what you did.

The only problem is the price.. You wont know until it's posted and it may not be in your ballpark. I was excited about one of the houses opening up for sale, but then they posted the price, yikes. They had open houses, so I went to one out of curiosity. I was disappointed with it overall, I couldn't afford it anyway, so sour grapes, obviously, but even if I had the money, I'd want to change so many things about it I didn't even expect looking at it from the street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been actively looking in Falls Church / N Arlington area and houses are being bid $100-200k over asking with a few places that have been bought sight unseen.

We’re wondering if we should renew our lease so that we can resume our search in a few months / next year.

What’s your price range

$1.3-1.5M. It's so bad in VA that we're actually looking at buying in D.C.

Watch the 1.1 to 1.3 listings like a hawk (or have your agent doing this), see it immediately the day it goes live and your agent can take you, and bid way up with an escalation clause.

Better yet: drive your desired neighborhood a couple of times per week and watch for houses with lots of work trucks but that seem to be otherwise quiet. If you have a dog you can do this less conspicuously. On our dog’s billion walks per day we started to notice a hour with handyman trucks, then painting company trucks, then the garage would be open and we realized it looked really cleaned out. The lights were never on at night and I told DH we had to move money around and call our mortgage broker.

When the house was listed, we had already been pre-approved for the mortgage and our real estate agent had already contacted their real estate agent. We got the house.

You sound just a LITTLE like the narrator of Best Offer Yet- a novel set in DC about a … very persistent homebuyer.

[Anonymous]

Here are REAL facts for 2026. I’m giving you Ciry, average sale price, says on market and what percentage went for over list. All areas seem basically the same. All markets strong. I’d say vienna is the strongest for sellers.

Arlington 806k 22 days 17% over list
Alexandria 657k 21 days 26% over list
Mclean 1.4M 29 days 13% over list
Vienna 1.1M 16 days 31% over list
Reston 619k 17 days 24% over list
Ashburn 791k 15 days 27% over list
Leesburg 837k 13 days 26% over list

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here are REAL facts for 2026. I’m giving you Ciry, average sale price, says on market and what percentage went for over list. All areas seem basically the same. All markets strong. I’d say vienna is the strongest for sellers.

Arlington 806k 22 days 17% over list
Alexandria 657k 21 days 26% over list
Mclean 1.4M 29 days 13% over list
Vienna 1.1M 16 days 31% over list
Reston 619k 17 days 24% over list
Ashburn 791k 15 days 27% over list
Leesburg 837k 13 days 26% over list

Do You have City of Falls Church stats?

[Anonymous]

Looks like there are even a few open houses for new or renovated homes that are coming up in Manassas this weekend! Hooray!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here are REAL facts for 2026. I’m giving you Ciry, average sale price, says on market and what percentage went for over list. All areas seem basically the same. All markets strong. I’d say vienna is the strongest for sellers.

Arlington 806k 22 days 17% over list
Alexandria 657k 21 days 26% over list
Mclean 1.4M 29 days 13% over list
Vienna 1.1M 16 days 31% over list
Reston 619k 17 days 24% over list
Ashburn 791k 15 days 27% over list
Leesburg 837k 13 days 26% over list

This is not useful data until you split it up by SFH, Townhome and condo sales

[Anonymous]

The Arlington market still seems really slow unless you're looking for a new build.