Are People Still Buying Single Family Homes in Bethesda?

As we continue to navigate these unprecedented times with social distancing and COVID-19 cases fluctuating up and down, the Bethesda real estate market feels largely unaffected. In this article we analyze the real estate data in the area to really understand what is happening.

For this analysis, we compared the real estate data each month in 2020 against its 5-Year Average for that month. This comparison will shed light on how the current market is performing compared against historic performance, while taking into account monthly and seasonal variations.

BETHESDA NEW LISTINGS:

In Bethesda, the new year started out strong with new listings for detached homes in January, February and March being near the 5-year average compared to the respective months in past years. As COVID-19 cases in the United States began to rise in late March, the new listings started to taper off and then in April dropped significantly to 43% of the 5-year average, before rebounding a little in May to 76%

Table 1: New Listings for Detached Homes in Bethesda

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BETHESDA NEW PENDINGS & CLOSED SALES:

New pending sales represent the number of homes that went under contract. Once again, a similar trend was observed, where the months of January, February and March started off strong and mirroring the 5-year average for those months. In April, it dropped significantly to 57%, before rebounding slightly in May to about 75%. As closed sales lag the new pendings by about 30 days, we do see the strong figures for closed sales for January, February, March and April followed by a drop in May to 68%. Although the June 2020 figures are not available yet, we do not anticipate a strong increase in closed sales.

Table 2: New Pendings for Detached Homes in Bethesda

Table 3: Closed Sales for Detached Homes in Bethesda

BETHESDA ACTIVE LISTINGS:

Active listings represent the available homes on the market. Historically, the summer months of June and July represent the peak availability of homes on the market. The 5-year average of active listings for detached homes in May is 214 and in May 2020, there were 134 active listings, which is near a third less than the 5-Year Average. Because of COVID-19 active listings are significantly less than the five year average for the months of April and May. However the number of active listings dropped below the five year average in June of 2019 meaning that listing numbers have been trending downwards well before stay at home orders were put into effect. The bottom line is that while the supply of active listings in Bethesda have decreased, Bethesda seems largely unaffected by the virus by this metric.

Table 4: Active Listings for Detached Homes in Bethesda

BETHESDA MEDIAN SOLD PRICE & AVERAGE DAYS ON MARKET:

The lower inventory of homes is supporting a very robust sellers market, maintaining strong home prices and low days on market. In 2020, the median sales price for detached homes peaked at 112% of the 5-year average. The median sales prices from January through May are still at or well above the 5-year average. When the June 2020 data becomes available, it will be very interesting to see if this market cooling trend continues or if the low inventory will continue driving prices up.

When we look at the average days on market, houses continued to sell as fast as the five year average if not faster. On average in April houses sold in 18 days, twice as fast as the the 5-year average. However the days increased in May back to around the same as the 5-year average. With the historic low inventory of homes and strong buyer demand, there would be no reason to believe this trend will dissipate anytime soon.

Table 5: Median Sold Price for Detached Homes in Bethesda

Table 6: Average Days on Market for Detached Homes in Bethesda

About Peggy Yee

Peggy Yee is a supervising broker at Frankly Realtors and is a local Top Producer. She has sold over $180 million in sales and was one of Northern Virginia Magazine's Top Realtors since 2015. She has been quoted in the Around Reston Magazine, Washington Post, Money Magazine, Consumer Reports, Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com. Peggy is 100% committed to making your move the best experience possible! Don't just take our word...Click here to see what Peggy's past clients have to say about the experience working with her from Buyer and Seller Video Testimonials and you'll understand why she is one of the top real estate agents in Bethesda with dozens of 5 Star Zillow reviews. Click here for Zillow Reviews.

* Data Source: BrightMLS and SmartCharts. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.