Buying And Selling: Tight Squeeze

An insider source in the real estate market sent me an Internet recently saying that their brokerage--based in D.C.--was seeing fewer units on the market and higher sales in August, indicating that they may have hit bottom, and there might be stabilization at current prices in the future.

What was particularly interesting was that the "soft" markets listed were in formerly hot areas such as Loudon County, Virginia (recently given the duke as the richest county in America), and that the signs of growth were in neighboring areas such as Fairfax and Arlington Counties, which are still suffering bad cases of condo glut, so I've got a hard time reconciling the idea of a tighter market with all of those ugly developments under construction on practically every open plot of land in the Metro D.C. area.

D.C., in particular is tough to use as a bellwether for real estate development, because the influx of government money and contracts drenched in filthy lucre will ensure the region is insulated from the worst of the bubble burst's repercussions. Still, I'll keep my eyes peeled and document the atrocities as they occur.

Posted at September 12, 2006 01:46 PM

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An insider source in the real estate market sent me an Internet recently saying that their brokerage--based in D.C.--was seeing fewer units on the market and higher sales in August, indicating that they may have hit bottom, and there might be stabilization at current prices in the future. What was particularly interesting was that the "soft" markets listed were in formerly hot areas such as Loudon County, Virginia (recently given the duke as the richest county in America), and that the signs of growth were in neighboring areas such as Fairfax and Arlington Counties, which are still suffering bad cases of condo glut, so I've got a hard time reconciling the idea of a tighter market with all of those ugly developments under construction on practically every open plot of land in the Metro D.C. area. D.C., in particular is tough to use as a bellwether for real estate development, because the influx of government money and contracts drenched in filthy lucre will ensure the region is insulated from the worst of the bubble burst's repercussions. Still, I'll keep my eyes peeled and document the atrocities as they occur.