Weekly Meter

• Combined new contract activity fell from 1,027 contracts in 2025 to 761 this year, down 266 contracts (-25.9%), essentially matching last week's record-setting -24.9% pace rather than easing off it.
• All six jurisdictions posted declines for the fourth consecutive week.
• Prince William County was the "least bad" performer this week at -18.8%, the only jurisdiction to hold its decline under 20%.
• Prince George's County was the steepest decliner at -28.6%, paired with the week's sharpest days-on-market jump: 49.0 to 68.0 days (+38.8%).
• Washington, DC's average days on market rose again, from 63.7 to 84.1 days (+32.0%), DC's second straight week as the region's slowest-moving jurisdiction, following last week's +45.3% jump.
• The region's weighted average days on market crossed 50 days for the first time this stretch: 44.9 to 52.0 days (+16.0%), building on last week's +21.7% jump.
• Year-to-date, the region has recorded 44,586 contracts versus 46,428 last year, a gap of 1,842 contracts (-4.0%), wider than last week's -3.5%, continuing to widen for a fourth straight week.

• Four consecutive weeks of across-the-board declines is no longer debatable as a blip, and the pace itself (-25.9%) is holding at essentially the same significant level as last week's record rather than moderating, This slowdown isn't cresting,; it's plateauing at its worst point so far.
• Washington, DC's second consecutive week atop the slowest-days-on-market list is a far more durable signal than a single bad week. Two weeks ago DC was the bright spot of the region; now it's logged back-to-back DOM spikes of +45.3% and +32.0%. That looks like a genuine shift in that market's dynamics; likely some mix of elevated inventory, rate-sensitive buyers sitting out the city's higher price points, and normal seasonal softness compounding rather than a one-off.
• Prince George's County now holds the dual distinction of steepest volume decline (-28.6%) and steepest single-week days-on-market jump (+38.8%) — a market cooling on both axes at once, which is a more serious combination than either metric moving alone. When volume and speed deteriorate together, it typically signals buyers pulling back broadly rather than simply being pickier about price.
• The region's weighted days-on-market crossing 50 days for the first time this fall (52.0 days, versus 44.9 a year ago) is a meaningful threshold, not just a statistic. It’s roughly a week longer, on average, than a year ago, which starts to matter concretely for seller pricing strategy and expectation-setting with clients, not just as a trend line on a chart.
• Prince William County's relative resilience (-18.8%, the only jurisdiction under a 20% decline) stands out against five jurisdictions posting declines of 23-29%. Several jurisdictions have swapped "least bad" status from week to week this fall (DC two weeks ago, Prince George's last week), so it's worth watching whether PW is genuinely decoupling from the regional pattern or simply due for its own catch-down next week.
• The year-to-date gap has widened in lockstep with each week's decline: -2.5%, then -3.0%, then -3.5%, now -4.0% — which means this is no longer a story about a soft patch sitting on top of an otherwise-flat year. The full-year number is now tracking meaningfully behind 2025, and barring a sharp reversal, 2026 looks on pace to finish clearly below last year's contract volume region-wide.
• The rate environment remains the most obvious macro driver: mortgage rates holding in the high-6s/low-7s through late October gives buyers little reason to rush, and the normal seasonal pullback heading into November is compounding that caution rather than offsetting it. Four weeks of accelerating-then-plateauing declines, paired with a now-elevated days-on-market baseline, is consistent with a market where buyers aren't panicking — they're simply patient, and increasingly unbothered about losing out on a specific home.
• None of this reads as a crash — year-to-date contract volume is still within 4% of last year's pace — but the combination of a full month of broad weekly declines and a decisively higher days-on-market floor is a different, more structural signal than the choppier, mixed-week pattern the region saw through late summer. Absent a meaningful rate move, expect both lower volume and longer marketing times to persist through November.

• Northern Virginia: 314 → 228 (-27.4%); YTD 14,728 → 14,401 (-2.2%)
• Loudoun County: 95 → 69 (-27.4%); YTD 4,637 → 4,187 (-9.7%)
• Prince William County: 117 → 95 (-18.8%); YTD 5,244 → 5,312 (+1.3%)
• Montgomery County: 209 → 154 (-26.3%); YTD 8,703 → 8,370 (-3.8%)
• Prince George's County: 175 → 125 (-28.6%); YTD 7,457 → 7,095 (-4.9%)
• Washington, DC: 117 → 90 (-23.1%); YTD 5,659 → 5,221 (-7.7%)
• Combined contracts: 1,027 → 761 (-25.9%)
• Weighted average days on market: 44.9 → 52.0 days (+16.0%)
• Combined year-to-date contracts: 46,428 → 44,586 (-1,842 contracts, or -4.0%)

Four weeks doesn't just make a pattern anymore; it makes a trend you plan around.

• Virginia Countryside: 81 → 70 contracts, -13.6%, with both price bands softening (under-$750K -13.8%, over-$750K -12.5%).
• West Virginia Panhandle: 69 → 71 contracts, +2.9%, driven by the under-$750K segment (+1.4%) plus one additional contract above $750K (0 to 1, too small a sample to read into).
• Combined contract activity across both markets: 150 → 141, -6.0% for the week.
• Virginia Countryside's average days on market spiked from 50.3 to 86.4 days (+71.8%), by far the largest single-week marketing-time swing logged in either market this fall.
• West Virginia Panhandle's average days on market fell sharply, 65.6 → 44.6 days (-32.0%), even as contract volume ticked up, the exact inverse of Virginia Countryside's pattern this week.
• Year-to-date, Virginia Countryside remains positive at +0.9% (3,837 → 3,870), while West Virginia Panhandle is down 3.5% (3,884 → 3,747), both readings far steadier than this week's swings suggest.
• West Virginia Panhandle's year-to-date over-$750K segment is up 63.2% (68 → 111 contracts), still a small absolute number, but the fastest-growing segment in either market for a second straight review.

• This week is essentially a mirror image of last week: seven days ago Virginia Countryside was up 4.4% with West Virginia down 33.3%; this week Virginia Countryside is down 13.6% with West Virginia up 2.9%. That kind of week-to-week role reversal in two small, adjoining markets is exactly the signal-vs-noise lesson this report keeps returning to; the weekly print tells you almost nothing in isolation, and the year-to-date column is where the real read lives.
• The year-to-date numbers, read side by side with last week's, barely moved. Virginia Countryside eased slightly from +1.2% to +0.9%, West Virginia held essentially flat at -3.5% (from -3.6%). Two wildly different weekly headlines produced almost no change in the underlying year-long trend, which is the clearest possible demonstration of why these markets need to be judged on cumulative, not weekly, performance.
• Virginia Countryside's 71.8% days-on-market spike is the standout number of the week in either report, metro or countryside. A jump from 50 to 86 days in a single week, on a market this size, most likely reflects a handful of longer-marketed properties finally going under contract together in this particular week, rather than a sudden, genuine shift in buyer urgency, but it's worth tracking whether that elevated DOM baseline holds into next week's data before writing it off entirely as a one-week artifact.
• West Virginia Panhandle's inverse move — days on market dropping 32.0% while volume rose — is a healthier combination than it might first appear: homes that went under contract did so faster, not slower, even as more of them closed. That's consistent with available, well-priced inventory moving efficiently, a markedly different story from the cooling pattern playing out across the six core Metro DC jurisdictions this same week, where every market logged its fourth straight week of decline.
• The over-$750K segment in West Virginia continues to be the one genuinely durable trend in this report: up 63.2% year-to-date for a second consecutive review, even as the overall Panhandle number swings around week to week. That's consistent with DC-area buyers migrating further out for land, acreage, and larger homes at a meaningfully lower price-per-square-foot than Northern Virginia or Loudoun, a structural pull factor, not a one-week fluke.
• Taken together, these countryside markets continue to move almost entirely independently of the Metro DC slowdown. While the six core jurisdictions just posted a fourth straight week of across-the-board declines and a region-wide days-on-market figure that cracked 50 days for the first time this fall, these two smaller markets are simply trading leadership week to week around a basically flat-to-slightly-positive (Virginia) and modestly negative (West Virginia) year-long baseline, neither accelerating nor decelerating in a way that tracks the metro pattern.
• The practical takeaway for agents working this corridor: don't let either market's weekly headline drive the client conversation. A Virginia Countryside seller hearing "days on market up 72%" should hear the year-to-date number (+0.9%, essentially flat) in the same breath; a West Virginia Panhandle buyer hearing "contracts up this week" should understand that's coming off a modestly negative year-to-date baseline, not a suddenly hot market.

• Virginia Countryside: 81 → 70 (-13.6%); YTD 3,837 → 3,870 (+0.9%)
• West Virginia Panhandle: 69 → 71 (+2.9%); YTD 3,884 → 3,747 (-3.5%)
• Combined weekly: 150 → 141 (-6.0%)
• Virginia Countryside average days on market: 50.3 → 86.4 days (+71.8%)
• West Virginia Panhandle average days on market: 65.6 → 44.6 days (-32.0%)
• West Virginia Panhandle year-to-date over-$750K: 68 → 111 contracts (+63.2%)

Same two small markets, same week — proof once again that in the countryside, this week's headline and this year's trend rarely tell the same story.