It’s not the best of times, it’s not the worst of times. That’s how one might describe the Washington, D.C. housing market right now, with apologies to Charles Dickens for the spin on one of his most famous openings. Despite social media rumors about a spike in home sales in response to President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE team dramatically cutting the federal workforce, hard numbers show a relatively stable market in the area, at least for now.
“There is no panic shown in the MLS data,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist and senior vice president of research at the National Association of REALTORS, in reference to multiple listing service databases. Yun adds that he’s observed expected winter price reductions and that overall listings in February seem on par with last year.
We’ll take a closer look at the data, talk to a REALTOR with boots on the ground in the nation’s capital city, and examine why this narrative has taken hold online.
What the Washington, D.C. housing market is like right now
Fortune asked Russell Brazil, an agent with RLAH @properties and president-elect of the Greater Capital Area Association of REALTORS (GCAAR), whether he’d noticed any big changes in home sale activity—either post-inauguration or following the layoffs of federal employees.
“There has been no notable change in expected market conditions,” Brazil says. “February 14th traditionally is the start of the spring selling season. Every year with the spring selling season we see an uptick in available inventory and a corresponding increase in buyer demand.”
Brazil added that the housing market remains hot in most of the metro area, with low inventory and for-sale properties often receiving multiple offers. He also observed that nearly 90% of the workforce in D.C. is made up of workers who are not federal employees, so even with the political environment as it is, he does not anticipate a huge spike in home sales.
Still, there’s enough chatter about this topic that when GCAAR released the latest housing market statistics for Washington, D.C. and Montgomery County, Maryland on Feb. 20, the group emphasized it wanted to provide accurate information to counteract social media rumors.
“Recent changes to the federal workforce have understandably sparked concern about how those changes will affect our region, and some individuals are capitalizing on that uncertainty by distributing information that is not factually accurate,” Samantha Damato, GCAAR’s current president, said in the news release.
January 2025 saw 2,940 active listings, 1,428 new listings, and 939 closed sales in the area represented by GCAAR. This reflects a market roughly in line with five-year average numbers for January activity—though active listings were slightly higher than the five-year average, while new listings and closed sales were both slightly below it.
As a comparison, GCAAR numbers show that in January 2024, there were 2,325 active listings, 1,447 new listings, and 805 closed sales. In January 2023, there were 2,265 active listings, 1,675 new listings, and 808 closed sales.
Rumors may reflect a misunderstanding of seasonality
Combine a tense political situation with market fluctuations, and you’ve got an environment ripe for a dramatic narrative spreading across platforms like X (formerly Twitter). But, as always, it’s wise to exercise some skepticism about what you see on social media.
Read more from Fortune
“The narrative on social media has been greatly exaggerated,” says Brazil, GCAAR’s president-elect. “I believe it was made purely for clickbait, and simply a misunderstanding of market cycles. Inventory and prices ebb and flow throughout the year.”
That’s not to say the policies under Trump administration 2.0 aren’t impacting workers, of course. For example, a recent Redfin report quoted a real estate agent saying he was working with a couple in the D.C. area who’d been forced to consider selling due to the return-to-office mandate—their current commute would be tough, and they’d like to be closer to public transit.
The takeaway
“Logically, it also would not make sense for panic now,” says Yun of the National Association of REALTORS. “It takes time to assess the next steps. People do not list immediately following the knowledge of a job loss.”
In other words, the housing market is relatively normal, at least for now. However, it may be too soon to know with certainty how much Trump and Musk’s activity targeting the federal workforce will shake up what it looks like to live in the nation’s capital.
Related reading
- Are Millennials the reason single-family home rents are off the charts? A new Zillow report looks at the numbers
- 2024 new home sales hit their highest pace in three years. Does that mean lower home prices are around the corner?
- An outdated IRS tax law that’s unchanged since the Clinton era is making the U.S. housing crisis worse
