The Washington region's spring home-selling season is poised to be the best since the recession began as a new report shows prices have jumped by double digits in two years and foreclosures continue to fall.
Washington was the nation's top-performing market in February with home prices increasing by 8.3 percent from a year earlier, according to the trend-tracking firm Clear Capital. Over the past two years, Washington rated among the top five markets, with home prices rebounding by 13.2 percent since early 2009.
According to Clear Capital spokesman Alex Villacorta, home values here are now roughly 16 percent above the bottom of the market in mid-2009, when home values were 42 percent off the peak.
Real estate agents already are seeing the effects of the upward march as Washington prices steadily climbed throughout 2010.
| Nation's best and worst markets | ||||
| Best | Change from February 2009 | Change from February 2010 | ||
| Washington | +8.3% | +13.2% | ||
| Memphis | +8.1% | +20.8% | ||
| Cleveland | +8.0% | +81.7% | ||
| Worst | ||||
| Milwaukee | -14.7% | n/a | ||
| Tucson | -13.4% | -20.8% | ||
| Detroit | -12.8% | +6.6% | ||
| Source: Clear Capital | ||||
"We're already seeing properties stay on the market for a much shorter period of time," said Joanne Darling, president of the Prince George's County Association of Realtors. "We went from six months [a year ago] to now 60 to 90 days -- that's considerable. And as the weather gets warmer we expect to have these moments of good activity coincide with that."
Nationally, prices fell by 3.2 percent in February from a year ago. The decline is sharpest in the struggling West, where Clear Capital predicts a double dip in home values in the coming months.
Experts say home prices are stabilizing as the number of foreclosures on the market decreases. Prince George's County, which has caught the brunt of the region's foreclosure crisis, still accounted for roughly one-quarter of the more than 1,700 foreclosures filed in the area in February. But the region's February foreclosures dropped 65 percent drop from a year earlier, and Prince George's filings fell 75 percent.
Montgomery County saw an 85 percent decrease in foreclosure filings and Northern Virginia counties saw drops ranging from 11 to 24 percent.
Villacorta said that while foreclosures still account for 14 percent of all home sales in the region, it's a far cry from the 40 percent of a few years ago. That has allowed local home prices to reflect more "normal" rates of growth. Before the housing boom -- which saw prices jump by 31 percent one year -- home values in the region increased by 5 to 8 percent annually.
