ValcoMD Market Conditions Update Baltimore / Washington DC Metros:
October 2025 Housing Market Update: The DC Metro median sales price modestly rose again at 0.3% to $600,500, with mixed indicators as closed sales rose 4.4% but all else was negative as active inventory increased 39.1%, new listings rose 12.3%, pending sales were down 3.3%, showings dropped 0.5%, months of supply continues to rise at 2.65, and days on market almost doubled to 21.
Similarly, the Baltimore Metro median sales price marginally grew 0.5% at $400,000, closed sales rising 6.5%, active inventory spiked 31.7%, new listings rose 6.1%, pending sales fell 3.1%, showings dropped 1.6%, months of supply jumped to 2.47, and days on market rose to 16.
Within the state of Maryland for Sep 2025 vs 2024 where stats saw $430,000 median SP$ gain 1.4% while all else was mostly negative except pending sales which grew from 5,879 to 6,113. Active inventory slightly rose from 15,244 to 15,646, new listings declined from 7,832 to 6,917, closed sales fell from 5,610 to 5,604, months of supply were stable at 2.7, and day on market rose from 11 to 17.
Fraud is back…. I recently read about mortgage fraud in Baltimore that eerily reminded me of how I learned firsthand about fraud almost 25 years ago. The Baltimore Banner featured the following story about a recent mortgage fraud case: This was startlingly similar to the NY City 203K fraud scandal that I worked with a number of organizations including HUD post this scheme. There are two major types of mortgage fraud: fraud for home (where a lender or borrower misstates or does not provide significant facts to obtain a mortgage), these generally involve just one home; the other (like these cases above) is fraud for profit (where a collective or collaborative effort of parties intend to defraud) and generally involve multiple properties. With the 203K scandal there were over 700 properties totaling tens of millions of dollars (today’s values would be hundreds of millions) of loan balances. The current Baltimore case is also very large, and it is extremely concerning as to how this kind of activity can still exist given the advances in technology and prior experience(s) 25 years later. Kudos to Arch Mortgage for publishing in July 2025 an Exclusionary List that has identified many of these participants: I can only ask of the mortgage and real estate communities as well as the public is that is if you see something odd or irregular, please say something to someone (local, state, or federal housing agencies is a good start). Regulators can then suspend or revoke licenses and take appropriate legal actions. These types of cases significantly damage the public trust in homeownership and adversely impact local housing, the community and its residents. Recently, significant merger and acquisition activity in Real Estate and Mortgage (Rocket acquiring Redfin and Mr. Cooper, Compass potential acquisition of the Anywhere brands, and ICE’s strategic investment in Polymarket) will have an unknown impact on our markets, but we should be anxious to learn of their intent and plans and to see the potential activity and results. Lastly and locally, we appear to be in a stable to declining market as supported by the above statistics and trends with inconsistencies between the Counties.
Source: Bright MLS and Associated State, Local RE Boards, Baltimore Banner, Village Voice, Arch Mortgage, ICE, Compass, Rocket Mortgage October 18, 2025.
The GSEs announced that they will require appraisals to contain a Market Area analysis to support time adjustments and market conditions in Q1 2025. This does NOT have to be complex or time consuming, but that does not minimalize its importance. We have been providing similar information in every report since 2020 (see below). We are not statistical or analytics experts. However, one of the most important roles of the local appraiser is to provide data and comment on local market stats and trends. A robot can pull the data and provide the stats, but only the local pro can reconcile the data and guide the reader to see the issue(s). A doctor returning an x-ray or scan from a technician, and not providing an interpretation is worthless to the patient.