I promise I won’t talk about the federal homebuyer tax credits forever. I know they expired April 30, 2010, but they still affect any statistical analysis of Washington-area real estate.
Last month’s sales were up 46 percent over May 2010. Stunning, huh?
There’s just one thing: May 2010 was not a normal month. Many buyers scrambled to buy a home in April of last year so they could take advantage of those free federal dollars. All that activity last April meant fewer buyers were around in May.
My point is this: I’m glad this May was a good sales month, but the 46-percent-increase figure is somewhat misleading.
It is more helpful to compare May 2011 to May 2009. You can see in the charts that sales in Virginia were a little lower this year than they were two years ago. But in Maryland, it was the best May since 2006. Sales in Prince George’s County, for example, were up 82 percent over May 2010.
While the tax credits make any analysis of May’s sales problematic, it helps to add up all the sales for the first five months of the year. When you do that, something rather surprising turns up: 2011 is a better year than 2010. While those tax credits early in 2010 boosted sales temporarily, 2011 has been a busier sales year.
Just over 39,000 existing homes have been sold during the first five months of the year, an 11 percent increase over last year’s 35,000.
You can credit Maryland with that jump in sales. While Virginia sales are up 8 percent so far this year, Maryland sales have jumped 17 percent.
Prince George’s County leads the D.C. metropolitan area in sales growth, with an increase of 28 percent during the first five months of the year. The affordability of homes there certainly helps. By comparison, sales in expensive Montgomery County are down 2 percent this year.
In Virginia, Stafford and Spotsylvania counties lead the pack. Sales in Stafford are up 26 percent so far this year, probably because lower home prices are getting the attention of buyers.
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