In the interest of saving keystrokes, we'll go ahead and quote directly from NAR's Economists' Outlook post regarding national inventory trends... 

"The total homes listed for sale continue to move downward.  The latest decline in October to 3.33 million was partly seasonal, as autumn and winter months nearly always have fewer listings in comparison with spring and summer months.  Still, examining listings only in the month of October (so as to get an apple-to-apple comparison), this year saw the lowest inventory since 2005."

Lawrence Yun - Chief Economist, NAR

Click here to see national inventory trends for October going back to 2001. Here's a chart listing the existing home inventory levels for the MRIS footprint, Baltimore Metro, and DC Metro regions.  Refer to Mr. Yun's summary above when looking at our local chart below...

Pending Sales Up from Last Year, but Median Sales Price Dips

Rockville, MD –(November 10, 2011) – The following analysis of the Washington, D.C. Metro Area housing market has been prepared by RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI), and is based on the October 2011 RBI Pending Home Sales Index™ released today.

View PDF version of this press release

OVERVIEW

October 2011 contract activity in the Washington, D.C. metro area outpaced seasonal patterns, attaining a level that was 18.6% higher than the 5-year October average. There were 4,125 new contracts written in October 2011, 10.4% ahead of the September 2011 total of 3,829. For the past 10 years, new contract activity has averaged a 4.3% increase from September to October.

The median sale price of $320,025 was 5.9% lower than October 2010. This, combined with the marked 23.3% month-over-month decrease in new listings, can partially be attributed to the lower jumbo mortgage limits which took effect October 1. There is evidence that the lowered jumbo mortgage limits may have kept potential high-end sellers out of the market and decreased the number of buyers willing or able to go after the higher priced home segment. New listings were down over 13.2% compared to October 2010 and down 20.3% from the 5-year October average. The attached home segment (townhouses, condos and coops) saw only a slight dip of 1.7% in median sales price year-over-year, with a $285,000 level in October 2011. This is consistent with the fact that the majority of jumbo mortgages are associated with detached properties.