A Trying Year, by The Numbers; Recession Hit the Region in a Big Way in '08, Driving Down Sales and Prices
By any measure, 2008 was a brutal year for the local real estate market, as gains made during the housing boom continued to unravel.</br></br>Home sales fell throughout the region as credit dried up and buyers fearful of an increasingly uncertain job market sat on the sidelines. No local jurisdiction except the District was spared from falling home prices, and some of the hardest hit Zip codes in the suburbs had declines of more than $100,000.</br></br>Region-wide, the median sales price for single-family houses and townhouses fell 8 percent, to $382,500 from $417,000, in 2007, according to a Washington Post analysis of government sales records. The median price for condominiums also fell 8 percent, to $268,000 from $289,900. The median is the point at which half the homes cost more and half cost less.</br></br>The economic events of the year played out in every segment of the market. The wave of distressed sales -- those homes sold by banks or by homeowners facing foreclosure -- dragged down prices at the lower end. Meanwhile, the stock market's dive in 2008, 38 percent as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, kept wealthier home shoppers from committing to purchases at the higher end, real estate agents said.</br></br>"It was depressing," said Mark Smith, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Gaithersburg. "We saw an increase of properties coming on the market, a decrease of credit flowing to what banks consider 'marginally qualified people' and an increase in short sales and foreclosures."