Why Is the Arlington Sold Median Far Higher on One Page Than Another? Reading a Postal-Area Median and a County Median

Why do the Arlington medians differ so widely?

The $1,695,000 on Realtor.com's postal area page and the $857,000 on Redfin's county page are both medians of sales, but of different homes. The postal area page covers a set of mostly single-family neighborhoods on the north side of the county. Redfin's page covers every sale in Arlington, including the condominiums along the Metro lines. The news report on August closings shows the split: single-family homes averaged $1,430,685 and condominiums $509,530 for the county, a ratio of 2.8 that this brief computes.

The postal area page is also inconsistent with itself. It shows a median sold price of $1,695,000, up 19.79%, and a median listing price of $1,537,493, down 6.53%, so the typical home that sold closed at 10.2% more than the typical home that was offered, a ratio this brief computes. That is only possible if the sold homes were larger or more expensive than the listed ones, or if the median of a small number of sales jumped, or if the windows differ. The page says homes sold for about the asking price with a ratio of 100%. The inference is that the sold median rests on a small count of high-priced sales.

A second inconsistency is in the neighborhood table. The page shows 113 active listings for the postal area, while its neighborhood table shows 440 homes for sale in North Arlington, a name the page uses for a wider area. The table lists Old Glebe at a median listing price of $2,999,999 and Waverly Hills at $249,990, a ratio of 12.0 that this brief computes. The page does not say what kinds of homes sit behind each figure, so the table mixes places that cannot be compared with one another.

The news report adds another warning. In August the county's median sales price rose 14.8% to $860,729 while the average sales price fell 0.5% to $933,380, with declines in all three segments: single-family down 6.9%, attached down 9.4% and condominiums down 9.7%. A median can rise while every segment's average falls when the mix of homes that sold shifts toward the pricier segment. This is a statement about arithmetic and not a prediction.

Source: Realtor.com Economic Research, as shown on the page. Commercial content; not independently verified.

Which Arlington price is the real one?

Six published figures run from $806,571 to $1,695,000. Zillow's $806,571 is a home value index across all homes in the county on August 31. The news report's $860,729 is the median closed price for August. Redfin's $857,000 is the three-month median to June. Realtor.com's $1,537,493 is a median asking price and its $1,695,000 is a median sold price, both for the postal area. The highest is 2.1 times the lowest.

The three county figures agree closely. Zillow's typical value is 5.9% below Redfin's median sale price, and the news report's median is within 0.5% of Redfin's, ratios this brief computes. Their agreement shows that the county as a whole sits near $800,000 to $860,000. The postal area figures are a separate population: the Realtor.com sold median is 97.8% above the Redfin county median.

The Census owner value in the postal area is $1,257,900 with a margin of error of $42,700, or 3.4%. It sits 25.8% below the Realtor.com sold median and 18.2% below the listing median, ratios this brief computes, and 46.8% above the Redfin county median. Owners in the postal area think of their homes as worth well over a million dollars, and the figure falls between the county's figures and the sold median of the page.

Prices also moved in different directions. Realtor.com's sold median is up 19.79% on the year and its listing median down 6.53%. Redfin's median is up 7.8%. Zillow's typical value is up 0.8%. A typical value that is nearly flat beside a sold median that is up 7.8% to 19.79% is what a mix shift toward larger homes looks like, though this is an inference and not a finding of any page.

The dollars are large. One percent of $857,000 is $8,570, and one percent of $1,695,000 is $16,950. A seller who reads the county page for a north Arlington house, or the postal area page for a condominium, is off by a very large sum.

Sources as cited. The measures, areas and periods differ and the figures are not directly comparable. Commercial content; not independently verified.

How uneven are the neighborhoods the page lists?

The Realtor.com page names eight neighborhoods with a listing median and a price per square foot. Old Glebe shows $2,999,999 and $605, Rock Spring $2,099,000 and $457, Cherrydale $1,862,500 and $463, Yorktown $1,499,500 and $531, Donaldson Run $1,425,000 and $544, High View Park $995,000 and $565, North Arlington $800,000 and $518 and Waverly Hills $249,990 and $334. The price per square foot ranges only from $334 to $605, a ratio of 1.8, while the listing median ranges 12 times, which shows that the large differences in price come from the size of the homes more than from the price of the land and construction. That is an inference from the table.

The clocks differ as widely. Yorktown shows 21 days on market, North Arlington 42, Donaldson Run 45, Waverly Hills 50, Old Glebe 59, Rock Spring 63 and Cherrydale 74. Cherrydale's clock is 3.5 times Yorktown's, a ratio this brief computes. A postal area median of 51 days contains places that sell in three weeks and places that take two and a half months, and the page says Yorktown's days are down 57% on the year while Cherrydale's are up 52%.

The same page lists the other places with a median price and a count of homes for sale: Lyon Village at $1,674,500 with 10 homes for sale, Aurora Highlands at $1,209,950 with 15, Lyon Park at $1,180,000 with 18, Nauck at $754,900 with 17, Penrose at $817,000 with 12, Shirlington at $445,000 with 20 and Colonial Village at $365,000 with 11. These appear to cover the whole county and not only the postal area, which is why this brief treats the table as a county-wide list of places.

The practical point is that a north Arlington median blends houses of very different size and age, and the right comparison for a particular house is the same street type, the same size and the same year of construction. None of the pages supply that.

Source: Realtor.com, as cited above. Ratios are this brief's arithmetic. Commercial content; not independently verified.

How long does an Arlington sale take, and how hard is the competition?

The clocks are 17, 29, 32, 42 and 51 days, and they measure different things. Zillow shows 17 days to pending. Redfin shows 29 days on market and 3 offers on average, and calls the market very competitive. The news report shows 32 days between listing and a ratified contract for August closings, against 41 a year before, an improvement of 22%. Realtor.com's postal area page shows 51 days for homes for sale, with the 42 days of North Arlington inside the table.

Redfin's June figures show a market where buyers competed. The sale-to-list ratio was 100.7%, up 0.8 points on the year, and 40.3% of homes sold above list, up 6.4 points. The share with price drops was 24.1%, down 2.2 points. So the share that sold above list was 1.7 times the share that cut its price, a ratio this brief computes. The news report's ratio for August is lower: homes garnered 97.7% of original listing price, up from 97.1%. The two ratios compare different prices, the final list price and the original one, and the gap between them is 3.0 points.

The count of homes is another view. The news report shows 470 properties for sale countywide in August against 419 a year before, an increase of 12.2%, and 188 pending sales against 195. It shows 193 closings against 192. Realtor.com's postal area page shows 113 active listings, down 4% on the year and up 60% over three years. The postal area supply is small, which can lift prices in a thin segment, but this is an inference.

The mortgage rate matters at the margin. The September 30 report says the 30-year rate averaged 7.03% on September 24 against 6.3% a year earlier, the first time above 7% since January 2025, and that sales for the first eight months were up 0.1% to 1,601. The September 15 report quotes a regional economist at the multiple-listing service who expects a slow fall market with fewer buyers and sellers and homes taking longer to sell. That is an opinion of a professional quoted in the article.

Sources as cited. Commercial content; not independently verified.

What does the Census say about the homes and the owners?

The Census describes a postal area of 35,479 people and 12,837 homes with a median household income of $245,745 and a median rent of $2,274. Of the homes, 9,532 (74.3%) were built before 1980, and the median year built is 1959. By decade, 1,652 homes (12.9%) date from 1939 or earlier, 1,793 (14.0%) from the 1940s, 3,388 (26.4%) from the 1950s, 1,826 (14.2%) from the 1960s and 873 (6.8%) from the 1970s. Newer homes are fewer: 582 (4.5%) from the 1980s, 420 (3.3%) from the 1990s, 879 (6.8%) from the 2000s, 1,200 (9.3%) from the 2010s and 224 (1.7%) since 2020. Homes built between 1940 and 1969 number 7,007, which is 54.6% of the stock.

The stock matters because buyers of a house from the 1940s or 1950s expect to inspect it, price the roof, the wiring and the heating, and often plan to renovate or rebuild. The 1,200 homes of the 2010s are likely to include many of those rebuilds, though the Census does not say so. A sale on the open market puts these items in front of an inspector and a negotiation. This is an inference about how buyers behave.

Of 12,231 occupied homes, 9,657 (79.0%) are owner-occupied and 2,574 (21.0%) are rented, and 606 homes (4.7%) are vacant. The vacant homes include 102 held for seasonal or occasional use, 70 for sale only, 70 rented but not occupied, 23 for rent and 341 in other categories. The 341 in other categories are 2.7% of all homes, and the Census does not say what they are.

The Census also asks when owners moved in. Of the 9,657 owners, 3,394 (35.1%) moved in in the 2010s, 1,737 (18.0%) in the 1990s, 1,691 (17.5%) in 1989 or earlier, 1,652 (17.1%) in the 2000s, 1,032 (10.7%) in 2020 to 2022 and 151 (1.6%) in 2023 or later. Owners who moved in before 2000 number 3,428, or 35.5%, and many bought before the long rise in prices. Owners who moved in since 2020 number 1,183, or 12.3%.

The Census median owner-occupied value is $1,257,900, with a margin of error of $42,700. Owners who have lived in their homes for decades sit on a large gain, and the figures show that the decision about whether and when to sell is theirs to make, with no deadline from the market. Readers comparing markets can also read the Falls Church brief and the McLean brief.

Source: Census Reporter, American Community Survey 2020-2024 five-year estimates, tables B25034, B25038, B25004, B25077, B25003, B25002 and B19013. Percentages and ratios are this brief's arithmetic.

What should an owner ask, and what does a private sale change?

Ask which Arlington a figure covers: the county, the postal area, a neighborhood or the whole Metro corridor. Ask which period and how many sales are behind it. Ask whether a price is a listing price, a sold price or an estimate. A seller who has the answers can read a page, and a seller who does not will find that three providers give prices that differ by a factor of two.

A private sale changes how a home reaches a buyer. With Maison Off-Market there are no showings and no neighbors talking about a sale, the closing date can be flexible so that an owner has time to find a new home, there are no commission costs, there are no closing costs and there are no inspections or repairs. For an owner of a 1950s house, the last point matters, because an older home is where an inspection list tends to grow. This brief does not claim that a private sale always brings a higher price than a public listing.

Fee arithmetic shows what the commission point means in dollars, without assuming any rate. Each 1% of a sale price is $8,570 at $857,000, $12,579 at $1,257,900 and $16,950 at $1,695,000. At 3% those amounts are $25,710, $37,737 and $50,850. At 5% they are $42,850, $62,895 and $84,750. These are illustrations of what a percentage means on the figures in this brief, and they are not a statement of what any agent charges or what any sale would cost.

Timing is the other thing an owner controls. A public listing starts a clock, and the pages above show 17 to 51 days, with 74 in Cherrydale. A private sale lets the owner choose the closing date, which matters most to people who need to find the next home first or who want to close after a school year.

Privacy is often the first thing owners raise. A public listing puts photographs, a price and every price change in front of anyone, and Redfin shows that 24.1% of homes had price drops, a fact neighbors can read. A private sale keeps those details out of view. That is a matter of preference and not a claim about price.

If you are weighing a sale of an Arlington home, one conversation costs nothing and obliges you to nothing. We ask about the home, the timing you would like and what you would need from a buyer, and we say plainly whether a private sale fits.

If you would like a private, no-obligation offer for an Arlington home, call 401-219-4207 or use the contact form on this site.

Methodology and limitations

Prices, days on market, counts and ratios come from a Realtor.com page for the postal area with indicators as of August 2026, a Redfin county page with data to June 2026, a Zillow county page updated August 31, 2026 and two local news reports dated September 15 and September 30, 2026 that cite MarketStats by ShowingTime and Bright MLS. The pages cover different places and periods and are mostly commercial, so they are not independent of each other. The Realtor.com postal area page shows a sold median above its listing median and a neighborhood table that does not match its own count of listings; both are flagged above. The Census figures are five-year estimates for a postal area.

Conclusion

The Arlington record shows a postal area sold median of $1,695,000 beside a county median of $857,000 and a typical value of $806,571, a sale-to-list ratio near 100% on one page and 97.7% on another, waits from 17 to 51 days, and a stock where 74.3% of homes predate 1980. The pages differ because they cover different homes in different months, and because the name covers condominium towers and large houses alike.