That would be the ghetto here. Our average is like 500,000.
this from a year ago.
Montgomery County's real estate bubble may not have popped in 2006, but it deflated substantially.
Median home sale prices increased 9 percent in 2006, less than half the rate of the previous year, according to a Washington Post analysis of single-family house and townhouse sales recorded in the county. Condominium sales are not included. The number of sales fell, too, dropping 17 percent, to 11,926.
Full map below
By either measure, however, the slowdown was not as abrupt as it was elsewhere in the region.
Sales prices fell in some neighborhoods. In Zip code 20852, which encompasses southern Rockville and North Bethesda, median house prices slipped 4 percent, to $550,000. In nearby Zip code 20817, which includes a wide swath of western Bethesda, median prices fell less than 1 percent, to $775,000.
Long & Foster real estate agent Faye Nabavian hypothesized that prices are down in these neighborhoods because of construction of the new four-lane, divided Montrose Parkway, which is supposed to alleviate traffic congestion in the area but has nearby residents worried about how it might affect their neighborhoods.
"Many people see road work like that, and it affects their mentality. Should I buy or sell? I've seen a lot of people get very nervous," she said.
Prices dropped 2 percent, to $546,500, in Brookeville's 20833.
Nearby Zip code 20860 saw the steepest decline, with the median price down 31 percent from 2005. However, because only 11 houses sold in this Sandy Spring Zip code, compared with 13 in 2005, the median would be expected to swing more widely than in a Zip code where there are hundreds of sales. The median is the point where half the sales are more expensive and half are less.
Some of the areas with the steepest gains were clustered in the northern Silver Spring area, where relatively new, four- and five-bedroom houses are available in the low- to mid-$600,000s. Zip codes 20903 and 20904 had a 13 percent rise, while 20906 gained 12 percent. Farther west, Zip code 20855 in Derwood had a 14 percent rise.
The planned inter-county connector will run through all these areas, and a steep drop in the number of home sales perhaps reflects fewer houses being sold in the road's path, Nabavian said.
The county's priciest Zip codes, in Chevy Chase and Potomac, continued to hold onto their value and are now flirting with a median price tag of $1 million. House prices in Chevy Chase's 20815 increased 11 percent, to $995,000, while in Potomac's 20854 they rose to $930,000.
"Our office is seeing price appreciation even in the winter months, which is amazing to me," said Dennis Melby, an agent with Long & Foster in Bethesda. "We are seeing fewer transactions, but at higher prices."
For those looking for more affordable digs, the median price in Germantown's Zip code 20876 was $327,900, the lowest in the county, while in nearby 20879, also in Germantown, it was $370,00. In Montgomery Village, Zip code 20886, the median price was $329,923.
-- Barbara Ruben, Special to The Washington Post |
