Follow the jobs.

by spookiness on Feb 16, 2012 12:54 pm • link • report

PG County.

by charlie on Feb 16, 2012 1:03 pm • link • report

using statewide va vs md data to compare VA and MD suburbs of DC is silly.

The article looks at county numbers - but compares a Fairfax increase over 2009 with a MoCo increase over 2011.

sigh.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 16, 2012 1:05 pm • link • report

The simple answer is that VA started on the downward foreclosure spiral faster than MD and so was able to recover sooner.

PWC in VA was sharing room in the top 2 or 3 places nationwide (along with places like Vegas, Detroit) of top foreclosure locales and was responsible for a heavy share of VA's total foreclosure stats. Much of it had to do with the subprime crisis, others were massive demographic changes brought on by local legislation.

PWC went from a place that had a couple hundred foreclosures a year in 2005 to nearly 7000 a year in 2007. The homes were sold, and people moved on.

PWC also enacted which was at the time, some of the strictist illegal immigrant laws in the nation and there was a pretty severe hispanic exodus from PWC, which acerbated the foreclosure problem.

There wasn't the same level of speculative home building in what are now the foreclosure centers of MD like PG so while the subprime crisis hurt, it wasn't until MD'ers started losing their jobs that their homes went to foreclosure, driving prices down.

by freely on Feb 16, 2012 1:07 pm • link • report

"Fairfax County home prices ended last year at $387,000, up 26 percent from a post-peak low in January 2009, while the Montgomery County median was $335,000, a 12 percent increase from a bottom in January 2011, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., a listing company in Rockville, Maryland. "

I'm not sure if this says what they say it says about the role of early declines or the pace of foreclosures. I'm pretty sure it doesn't speak to any broader issues.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 16, 2012 1:10 pm • link • report

It's hard to tell what any of the statistics tossed around in that article really mean. The text only discusses the DC suburbs, but the illustration for the article is a photo of a house in Baltimore, suggesting that the art editor at least thought that the whole state was being discussed.

by tom veil on Feb 16, 2012 1:12 pm • link • report

I agree with freely here. VA has much more friendly foreclosure law, and a lot more places went to foreclosure right after the housing crisis began, especially where there was a lot of subprime lending and the economy had crashed(see Prince William County, especially). I remember properties falling to 50% and then jumping back up.

I live in PG, and the foreclosures definetly came, they just came later because of stronger MD laws not allowing a speedy foreclosure process.(there are a lot of people here, like in PW County,who work in the local struggling labor markets like construction and manufcaturating, and not in the stronger national professional market that dominates in plcaes like Fairfax and Arlington.

by JA on Feb 16, 2012 1:27 pm • link • report

The article said that "Prince George’s County (200MF), Maryland, 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Washington, and Prince William County, Virginia, 29 miles southwest of the capital, "

Does anybody really think that you can compare a county that has a significant inside the beltway segment to a county that doesn't come anywhere near the beltway?

by mikeh on Feb 16, 2012 1:34 pm • link • report

I think the difference in foreclosure laws is one of the primary reasons, as freely noted. The article notes the substantial time difference between Fairfax's bottom and Montomgery's. The economies are a bit different as well, but I'm doubtful on how much the home prices are affected by this.

PG County and PW County are often compared, for good reasons, like having many employees in the federal gov't and in trades, but there are some key differences as well, that help explain the disparity in home prices. Lots of PW County residents work for contractors in Fairfax County and Arlington as well. So, they're obviously more tied to the Northern Virginia economy than PG County is. PW County's median household income is almost 20k more than PG's. And mikeh brings up a good point about the geographic differences. PG County is 2x more populous.

by Vik on Feb 16, 2012 1:51 pm • link • report

The difference between -0.8% and +3.6% is probably not great enough to be attributable to anything in particular. The market dropped by about 40%, and if you look accross zip codes, the net change varies by tens of percent.

by Jim Titus on Feb 16, 2012 2:03 pm • link • report

State-wide numbers are meaningless here. Fortunately you can compare zip codes and geographic areas in real estate sites like redfin.

I think the most relevant number is percent change in the past year of the Median Sold $/SqFt. Another potential useful # is % change in # of houses sold over the past year. Here are a few key ones I decided to look at. At these for these, it seems like the MD suburbs of DC are selling fewer houses, but what does sell is selling for more.

Alexandria:
http://www.redfin.com/city/250/VA/Alexandria
# Homes Sold 2010 to 2011: -3.7%
Median Sold $/SqFt 2010 to 2011: -1.3%

Arlington
http://www.redfin.com/city/21282/VA/Arlington-Arlington-County-VA
# Homes Sold 2010 to 2011: -8.6%
Median Sold $/SqFt 2010 to 2011: +0.5%

Bethesda
http://www.redfin.com/city/21534/MD/Bethesda
# Homes Sold 2010 to 2011: -11.8%
Median Sold $/SqFt 2010 to 2011: +21.6%

Silver Spring
http://www.redfin.com/city/26038/MD/Silver-Spring
# Homes Sold 2010 to 2011: -9.8%
Median Sold $/SqFt 2010 to 2011: +3%

Woodlawn
http://www.redfin.com/city/26823/MD/Woodlawn-Prince-George-s-County-MD
# Homes Sold 2010 to 2011: -25%
Median Sold $/SqFt 2010 to 2011: +21.1%

Brentwood
http://www.redfin.com/city/2449/MD/Brentwood-Prince-George-s-County-MD
# Homes Sold 2010 to 2011: -33.3%
Median Sold $/SqFt 2010 to 2011: +34.3%

by Dan H on Feb 16, 2012 2:25 pm • link • report

Maybe the numbers in the stories linked to in this and the previous post work out if you exclude marketing and mangagement expenses.

by Kolohe on Feb 16, 2012 3:06 pm • link • report

Jobs, jobs, jobs. There seems to be a series of recurring articles about Suburban Maryland's residential market performace vs. Northern Virginia's. In each the answer is the same. Until Maryland can grow jobs like NoVa, its housing markets as well as commercial real esate markets will lag. The majority of new residents to the area are not going to live in one state (MD) and commute to another for a job (VA) if they don't have to. A more interesting article would be to discuss why more jobs have gone and are going to NoVa and what changes can Maryland make to level the playing field.

by The Prophet on Feb 17, 2012 11:39 am • link • report