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Tim Trainum Properties
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REALTOR®, VA License #0225235004
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English
February
17

by

Housing Inventory Sits at Record Lows
Low inventory in the Northern Virginia housing market is nothing new. The local market has been faced with relatively fewer homes for sale since exiting the Great Recession more than 10 years ago. Homebuilders who were hurt during the recession are guarded and have not built new homes in the typical numbers. This has caused a significant amount of accumulated undersupply. Add to this sellers staying in their homes for much longer periods of time, only to be exacerbated by the pandemic. Compound this with an infusion of buyers who have entered the market wanting to take advantage of interest rates at all-time lows. The result is low inventory and an incredibly high demand when homes come to market.

Current Inventory is a 2-Sigma Event (less than 10% occurrence)
In order to put things into perspective, I thought it would be helpful to calculate inventory and plot it on a Bell Curve. From 2015 to 2020, January inventory in Northern Virginia has averaged 2.12 months. This is a quite low mark on its own as anything below 5 months inventory is generally considered a seller's market. Remarkably, inventory in January 2021 was just 0.91 months. Even more difficult, I have buyers who have confronted 0.33 to 0.50 months inventory in specific sub-markets like Ashburn, Fairfax, Reston and Manassas. How does this look on a Bell Curve? Nearly 70% of all behavior in any market is transacted within one standard deviation from the average (middle area of the Bell Curve). This is considered where normal markets behave. The current 0.91 inventory is two standard deviations from average which is where less than 10% of market activity occurs. To put this further into perspective, the U.S. stock market experienced a 15% decline in a single March 2020 week at the height of fear after pandemic stay-at-home orders were invoked. That market move was a 2.5-Sigma Event with just a 4% chance of occurring. The behavior in today's housing market is not far from that anomaly. As all markets do, inventory will correct and there will be a subsequent "regression back to the mean".

Seller Opportunity Has Never Been Better
The opportunity for sellers in this market is obvious, but maximizing proceeds with the strongest contract protection is not. It takes proper home positioning and the right agent counsel to achieve that outcome. Agents who share my industry positioning can even sell your home off-market and still receive multiple offers at full market value and can do it with a fraction of the showings and seller disruption. I can even negotiate an extended rent-back for sellers post-settlement to enable them to qualify for another mortgage and securely find a new home of choice.

Buyer Opportunity Requires the Right Positioning
Successful buying can certainly occur in this market environment with good value, but it absolutely takes the right agent to help buyers fully understand the market and become positioned to compete and win. I have successfully negotiated buyers into winning contracts in this market, despite being a market where many times buyers statistically have less than a 5 to 10% chance of winning when considering the number of offers presented to a seller for a given home.
 
"My overarching objective is to be an advisor and value provider. I work to become the conduit of information to help consumers make the most informed decisions possible. I just happen to also have a real estate license." - Tim Trainum
Categories: Buyers
Tim Trainum Properties
Tim Trainum Properties
  • 43777 Central Station Drive
  • Suite 390
  • Ashburn, VA 20147

Office: (571) 386-1075 Cell: (703) 568-6750 Email Me
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Disclaimer: All information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. All properties are subject to prior sale, change or withdrawal. Neither listing broker(s) or information provider(s) shall be responsible for any typographical errors, misinformation, misprints and shall be held totally harmless. Listing(s) information is provided for consumers personal, non-commercial use and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing. Information on this site was last updated 04/17/2026. The listing information on this page last changed on 04/17/2026. The data relating to real estate for sale on this website comes in part from the Internet Data Exchange program of Bright MLS (last updated Thu 04/16/2026 7:53:33 PM EST) or (last updated Fri 04/17/2026 4:41:17 AM EST). Real estate listings held by brokerage firms other than Delta Agent Sites may be marked with the Internet Data Exchange logo and detailed information about those properties will include the name of the listing broker(s) when required by the MLS. All rights reserved.
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