Northern Virginia home listings surged 63% in March over 2024

In what the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors describes as a “striking divergence from national patterns,” Northern Virginia saw a 63.6% year-over-year increase in active monthly real estate listings for March.

Nationally, total housing inventory rose 19.8% in March over the same month in 2024, according to the National Association of Realtors.

“It’s certainly an uptick, and it’s an uptick that I think you almost have to say has to be attributable in some part to the labor turmoil in the federal sector and in contractors because of these cutbacks and announced job layoffs,” said Terry Clower, professor of public policy at George Mason University‘s Schar School of Policy and Government.

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, tens of thousands of federal employees have been fired or put on leave as part of a measure to cut federal spending. Trump has also cut federal contracts, which has led to layoffs in the government contracting industry.

No firm data yet exists on how many Northern Virginia residents have lost their federal jobs.

At least 175,000 federal workers lived in the region as of 2023, according to data from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission. And the unemployment rate for Northern Virginia in March was 3.2%, up from 2.8% in January.

Putting your home on the market after losing a job or after witnessing your neighbors lose their jobs, Clower said, is a “very rational response.”

On the other hand, Matthew Cypher, director of the Steers Center for Global Real Estate at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, cautioned Friday that an increase in active listings for one month isn’t enough data to declare the sky is falling for Northern Virginia’s real estate market.

“Some might suggest that we’ve needed some churn like this to give other people an opportunity to buy into the market,” he said.

In March, there were 1,980 homes for sale in Northern Virginia, according to NVAR data released last week. There were 1,520 active listings in the region in February.

NVAR CEO Ryan McLaughlin described the increase in active listings as “breathing room” in an April 24 statement about the data.

“Rising inventory means buyers have more options, and sellers can expect more informed, competitive offers,” he stated. “This shift represents a healthier, more sustainable market for the long term.”

For Northern Virginia, March’s monthly supply of inventory (MSI) — a measure of how many months homes would remain on the market if no new inventory were added  — increased to 1.45 months, a 58% increase over the previous year and a 25% increase over February.

Even with the jump in inventory, Clower pointed out, Northern Virginia still has a tight real estate market. “We are still way below … the level of inventory for for-sale homes … 10 years ago,” he said.

Other real estate numbers

March saw 1,202 home sales closed in Northern Virginia, a 0.9% year-over-year increase. New pending sales increased 5.5% from March 2024 to 1,695 units.

“There hasn’t been much of a change in actual sales activity, say, versus the same month of last year, which actually then makes the escalation in listings look even more dramatic,” Clower said. “What you would normally see in this very tight market is if more homes came on to the market, there would be almost an equal number of sales.”

Homes spent an average of 18 days on the market last month, a 12.5% increase over the same period last year.

The median sale price last month in Northern Virginia was $755,625, up 3.5% compared with March 2024.

“Buyers are still willing to pay a premium for homes in our area,” Sherry Rahnama, a NVAR board member, said in a statement.

NVAR reports home sales activity for Fairfax and Arlington counties, the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church, and the towns of Vienna, Herndon and Clifton.