Total new-home closings: 11,035
Population: 6,033,737
The good: The housing market (in general) is low on inventory, while both the number of employed and real estate prices are up.
The bad: While the number of employed people is up, ironically unemployment is back to where it was in 2013 (above 5%); permits are down slightly.
The bottom line: With a housing market that closed out strong in 2014 and the federal government—plus 15 Fortune 500 companies—driving employment, this market isn’t expected to stall.
While the number of single-family permits dropped by 7% year over year in March 2015, gauging on the D.C.-area real estate market (in general), those numbers could rise in the face of low inventory and a market that closed out 2014 over the previous year across every indicator. Add to that median home prices reaching their highest December level ever in 2014 (at $408,000) and the number of employed people rising year over year in March 2015 to more than 3 million, and we expect a recipe that’s spec home friendly, if you can find suitable lots to build on. With the federal government, defense contracting, and 15 Fortune 500 companies fueling annual mean wages of $64,930, this region should keep on trucking.
