Silver Spring market overview: Home appreciation data and trends for 2022, by Rose Ogbonna.

Silver Spring Market Overview: Home Appreciation Data and Trends for 2022

By Rose Ogbonna

Silver Spring is a mid-sized town in the county of Montgomery, Maryland. According to the 2020 census data, the town had about 81,015 people making it the fifth most populous town in Maryland after Baltimore, Columbia, Germantown and Waldorf. It is the second most populous town in the county of Montgomery after Germantown.

According to Wikipedia, the name Silver Spring comes from a Mica-flecked spring discovered there in the 1840s by a man named Francis Preston Blair. The man would go on to buy much of the land surrounding the area.

SILVER SPRING DEMOGRAPHICS

The racial markup of the community as detailed by the Census Bureau shows that the majority of the people in Silver Spring identify themselves as white accounting for 45.7 percent of the total population, while blacks or African Americans make up 27.8 percent. The American Indian and Alaska Natives make up 0.6 percent of the population, Asians make up 7.9 percent of the population and the Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific islanders make up for 0.1 percent of the population in Silver Spring.

A common fact about the town is that it is home to many people of the Ethiopian Ancestry, much like most other places in the Washington Metropolitan Area. In terms of housing, the town has 63 constituent neighborhoods. To date, housing in Silver Spring is one of the highest in the nation but, it doesn’t come anywhere near the real estate prices in some of the most expensive communities in Maryland.

It is a white-collar town with fully 85.13 percent of the workforce doing the white collar jobs which is way above the national average. In overall, you will quickly notice that Silver Spring is a town of professionals; managers and service providers alike. Many people in Silver Spring work in professions such as management, office and administrative support and teaching.

In addition, it is important to add that this is a town of artists. The town boasts of having more artists, designers and people working in media more than 90 percent of communities in America. It is one of the factors that shapes the town’s culture.

Although not a large town, it has a large

concentration of young, single, educated and upwardly-mobile career starters. Many of the people living in Silver Spring are in their 20s and 30s who have an undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting their careers in professional occupations. This makes the town one of the ideal places for young, educated career starters who are looking to find many people like themselves.

REAL ESTATE OUTLOOK

The town has 31,827 houses or apartments and according to Zillow the median sales price for homes in Silver Spring is $519,595 which makes the real estate prices in this town some of the highest in the country.

In terms of

there large or the housing composition, are many apartments high rise apartments which account for the largest share of the housing in the market at 61.11 percent. The other types of housing prevalent in Silver Spring are Single-family detached homes that account for 29.83 percent, row houses and other attached homes that account for 4.93 percent of the town’s homes and a few duplexes which account for 4.06 percent.

Many people in the town prefer small units which are mostly found in large apartment complexes or the high rise apartments. The town has a mixture of owner-occupied and renter occupied housing.

Many of the houses in Silver Spring were built in the 40s through the 60s and these homes account for nearly half (48.47 percent) of the total housing stock in Silver Spring.

HOME APPRECIATION RATES

The real estate appreciation rates for homes in Silver Spring tracked to near the national average over the last ten years with an annual appreciation rate of 3.59 percent. In the last 12 months, the appreciation rate for homes in Silver Spring has been 11.67 percent which is actually lower than the appreciation rates in most other areas in the country. According to data from NeighborhoodScout, the last quarter’s appreciation rate in Silver Spring was at 4.89 percent translating to an annualized rate of 21.02 percent.

Comparing this data with the rest of Maryland, Silver Spring’s appreciation rate is lower than 70 percent of the cities and towns in the state.