Home prices in the Washington area climbed during the first three months of the year, the only area in the country to post an average increase during the first quarter. Meanwhile, the rest of the nation’s major markets continued their decline as prices regressed to late 2009 levels on average, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released Tuesday.
The region’s continued recovery in the face of a national double dip is largely because Washington got a head start in recovering from the recession, said John McClain, deputy director of the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis.
Best
Washington
Detroit
Los Angeles
Worst
Minneapolis
Phoenix
Chicago
National average
Source: S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices
| First-quarter best and worst | |||||||||||||
| Jan.-March | annual change | +4.3% | -0.9% | -1.7% | Jan.-March | annual change | -10.0% | -8.4% | -7.6% | -5.1% |
“We started going back up in jobs last April,” he said. “It wasn’t until early this year when most of the other markets started up — and some of those markets, like Phoenix and Miami, are more than six to eight months behind because of the foreclosure problem.”
House prices in the region increased by an average 4.3 percent during the first three months of 2011 from the first quarter of 2010. Washington was the only market in the top 20 markets to post an increase through March.
Nationally, the top 20 markets combined for a 5.1 percent drop in prices during the first quarter of the year, a new low for 2011.
David Blitzer, Standard & Poor’s index committee chairman, said the national double dip is worsened by last year’s homebuyer tax credit. The incentive artificially inflated the market, delaying the current, inevitable fall in prices.
“If you think about what data would have looked like if that hadn’t occurred, you’d see a decline in home prices less dramatic than in the last few months, but that’s what you’d see,” he said.
However, the Washington region’s job market — not just the federal government but also the white-collar jobs that have weathered the recession — has helped it beat the national downturn. And as the housing market heads into its peak selling season, that stability should keep prices afloat.
“There’s no guarantee they’ll go up, but they’ll hold on better than everyone else,” Blitzer said.
Traci Ronchon, a Keller Williams real estate agent in Alexandria, noted that means that not every homeowner in the region should expect to make money on their house. Real estate is, after all, hyperlocal.
“[Property] condition makes the hugest difference in the world right now,” Ronchon said. “If a property is conditioned well, you’re going to at least break even. But there are still homeowners across the region that are losing a lot of money on their properties.”
