March Signed Contracts Jump 34.3% Over February; Median Sales Price Rises 3.2% Year‐Over‐Year

Rockville, MD – (April 11, 2011) – The following analysis of the Washington, D.C. Metro Area housing market has been prepared by housing market expert Jonathan Miller, based on the March 2011 RBI Pending Home Sales Index™ released today:

OVERVIEW:

Pending home sales jumped 34.3% month‐over‐month as the Washington, DC metro area entered the “spring market” with 5,432 signed contracts, the highest number for the month of March since 2006. The March total exceeded the federal homebuyers tax credit‐fueled total reached in the same month last year. With three consecutive months of increased pending sales activity, median sales price showed a seasonal increase of 6.7%, the first month‐over‐month increase since last October.

New Embed Sizes. New Share function. New Excel formatting. New Pendings.

We are pleased to announce our latest release that includes several enhancements we'll cover below. The focus of this release was making custom graphs you build (within the Interactive Charts section) easier to embed on your site or share via email or social networking platforms. Highlights include...

More Embed sizes - Now includes 4 sizes for optimized viewing on your webpage: XL(785x440), Large (620x330), Medium (540x330), Small: (300x280)

Sharing function - Creates a standalone URL for your custom chart that can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, email or MySpace (it's still around we think)

Export to Excel - Revamped the formatting, saving you the time previously needed to expand columns, etc. on the exported data spreadsheet

New Pendings - Added to the Market Activity facet bar. Total Pendings is still there, but this gives you a more timely view of contract activity.

Sold Price to Original List Price - Interactive Chart now covers the more precise "average ratio" rather than "ratio of the averages" (don't worry, we dive into the weeds below)

Keep reading to learn more about each enhancement...