Many of us are concerned about home prices. But looking at national and even regional figures won’t help individual buyers and sellers very much.
You aren’t buying the average home in the Washington region, are you? You are buying a town home in Prince George’s County. Or selling a condo in the District.
So, today’s charts look at the three kinds of homes by location, including new and resale homes.
These are average prices for the entire year of 2010. Looking at data for a full year is best because monthly price data tend to jump up and down quite a bit.
If you are a buyer, these charts give you a sense of what you can buy, and where. If you can spend up to $450,000, your best bets for existing single-family homes are outside the Beltway or in Prince George’s County.
If you want a new single-family home, however, your options are even more limited. Remember, of course, that these statistics are averages. Although the average new single-family home in Prince William County went for $465,271 last year, you can find some for less.
Your $450,000 budget will go much further if you consider town homes and condos. It will buy you a town home in the District, which wasn’t true in 2007. Then, the average town home in the District went for $581,000.
For condos, the only place your budget of $450,000 will be a problem is Arlington County. Condos go for significantly less in the rest of the region.
One important note I should make about this chart: Some of these jurisdictions had a fairly small number of new-home sales last year. For example, you might get excited to see that you can buy a new single-family home in the District for just $406,371, compared with $1.2 million in Arlington and Alexandria.
However, just 14 new single-family homes were sold in the District last year. So that price reflects the small number of homes that happened to be built last year, not the true value of new homes in the District as a whole.
Send email to csicks@gmail.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.