September 2026 D.C. Metro Housing Market Report: The Fall Market Is Here

The fall market isn’t coming. It’s here. The week after Labor Day is when the D.C. housing market shifts gears, and it happens like clockwork.

Every month, our team researches and presents a market report to RLAH agents covering the latest data across the D.C. metro. Here is what the September numbers say, and what they mean if you’re buying or selling this fall.

Is the fall market really here?

Yes. And it isn’t coming later. It’s this week.

Every year, the biggest single-week jump in new listings of the whole year lands right after Labor Day. No other week comes close. Every seller who waited out the summer lists at the same time, so a home going live now has more competition than it did a month ago.

Here’s the part that surprises people. Buyers didn’t go anywhere. Contracts are running about the same as last year, maybe a little higher. But sellers are about to feel like there are fewer buyers, because so many new homes are hitting the market at once.

Is anyone actually out looking?

They are, and there are more of them every week from here on.

Which came first, the listings or the buyers? We think the buyers were ready and waiting. They just don’t go out until fresh homes start showing up in their feeds. Showings dipped a bit in late summer, but the pattern says they are about to climb. September and October out-show July and August every year, and that traffic lasts until the middle of November.

For a seller, that’s good news with a catch. You want to list where the most buyers are looking. You also need to know you’re not the only one doing it.

When does all that traffic turn into deals?

About a week after showings peak.

Contracts follow showings by roughly seven days. So what you see this week shows up in your pipeline next week. Here is a number worth knowing: August was the slowest month for contracts in the D.C. metro in five years. Fewer homes went under contract last month than at any point in that stretch.

We don’t expect that to last. The lines heading into September and October look much better than July and August did. Contracts should hold up through October before the real slowdown arrives in mid-November.

What does it cost to sit on the market?

More than most sellers think. The first ten days matter the most.

We looked at the average sale price compared to the original list price, based on how long a home sat before selling:

• 1–10 days: 102% of original list price
• 11–20 days: 99%
• 21–30 days: 98%
• 31–60 days: 96%
• 61–90 days: 94%

That’s an eight-point gap between selling fast and selling slow. On an $800,000 home, that’s about $64,000.

Ten days means two weekends. If you don’t see good signs after two weekends, the market has already given you its answer. Waiting rarely fixes it.

Every listing appointment includes the same question: “What if we try a higher price first?” It can cost real money. Every day a home sits, it is worth a little less than the day before. That isn’t opinion. It’s in the data.

How many sellers have already cut their price?

A lot. You may have seen the headline that 41% of active listings in the D.C. area have had a price cut. That’s about right. Four in ten homes on the market today have already lowered their price.

But that one number hides big differences from place to place. Using the weekly Altos report, we broke it down by market and home type. Altos’s founder uses 35% as a rough dividing line. When more than 35% of listings have cut their price, prices are not going up in that segment.

The standout is Bethesda detached homes, at 27%. That is the lowest on the chart, and it’s also the highest price point. The median detached home in Bethesda is around $1.75 million. Arlington is around $1.45 million.

Why does price matter here? Buyers at the top don’t depend on a mortgage the way most buyers do. Some can put more money down. Some don’t need a loan at all. Higher rates barely change their plans.

Is the problem too many homes, or too few sellers?

Too few sellers. This is not a flood of supply. It’s a drought.

We compared August 2026 to August 2019, which was our last “normal” year before the pandemic. New listings are lower today than in 2019 in five of the six Beltway counties:

• Montgomery County: down 30%
• D.C.: down 27%
• Fairfax: down 22%

Fairfax and Montgomery also have less active inventory now than they did in 2019. Fairfax homes are selling faster too, at 37 days on the market.

Arlington and Alexandria look different, but there’s a reason. 2019 was their tightest year ever. Amazon’s HQ2 had just been announced and homes were disappearing. Alexandria went from 193 active listings then to 395 today. That sounds big, but doubling a very small number still leaves you with a small number.

Where inventory has grown, it mostly grew from homes that aren’t selling, not from a wave of new sellers. Many owners still hold low mortgage rates and aren’t ready to give them up.

Why do the expensive homes keep selling?

Because of how they are financed.

Nationally, home prices are still rising at the top of the market and barely moving everywhere else. The AEI Housing Center tracks price growth by tier. Through July, the top tier is still appreciating. Everything below it has flattened out at around 1%.

The more expensive the home, the faster it’s appreciating. The cheaper the home, the slower it’s growing.

The top tier is set by the D.C.-area conforming loan limit, which is $1,249,125. That’s the size of the loan, not the price of the home. Add a typical down payment and the line lands at home prices of about $1.45 million and up. Buyers above that line depend the least on mortgage rates. Meanwhile, first-time buyers are the ones struggling most. They rely on low rates and a low monthly payment, and they feel every rate change.

One note: this data is national, not local. But it matches what we’re seeing here in the D.C. area.

Key Takeaways

• The fall market is here. Listings, showings, and contracts all surge this week, the same as the last four years.
• The first ten days decide your price. Sell in ten days and you average 102% of list. Sell in 61–90 days and you average 94%.
• Four in ten listings have already cut price. The exception is higher-priced homes, roughly $1.5 million and up, where buyers are less sensitive to rates.
• This is a seller shortage, not a supply glut. New listings are below 2019 levels in five of the six Beltway counties.
• The top tier is still appreciating. Everything else is flat or near 1%.

If you’re thinking about buying or selling this fall, the seasonal data says now is the time to make your plan, not wait. Reach out to your RLAH agent and we can show you the numbers for your exact neighborhood.

About this report: This monthly market report is produced by Justin Levitch, President of RLAH @properties, and his team. Each month they analyze BrightMLS, SmartCharts, and other market data for the greater Washington D.C. metro area — including Washington D.C., Arlington, Alexandria, Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, and Fairfax County — and present the findings to RLAH agents so they can better advise their clients. Published monthly at blog.rlahre.com.

Data sources: BrightMLS Weekly Market Report, BrightMLS SmartCharts, Altos Research, AEI Housing Center.