Viral social media posts are showing dozens of Northern Virginia homes as newly listed or “coming soon.” But real estate experts are saying the alarming posts are fake.
The fake posts show a photo of houses that are supposedly on the market in Arlington and Falls Church. They infer that the activity is the result of President Donald Trump’s recent efforts to drastically trim the federal workforce.
Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, told NBC4 that the viral photo is fake. “Right now, we are not seeing any major increase in inventory or any plunging in home prices,” Yun said.
Ashleigh Wehmeyer, a real estate agent with Compass Realty, also told NBC4 that the post is not real. She said that local real estate professionals are scrambling to set the story straight. “Some realtors have been posting because they’ve been getting calls from clients saying ‘What’s going on? Is this true? Should I put my house on the market right now?'” she said.
According to a release by Bright MLS, “Based on our listing data, we’re not seeing any evidence of a surge of listing activity in the Washington, DC, region. In the broader DC region … there were 2,829 new listings that came onto the market in the two-week period between February 3 and February 16, 2025. This is virtually unchanged from the same two weeks last year when there were 2,820 new listings on the market.”
The regional housing market had a strong showing last month. And Yun told NBC4 that the market won’t likely see massive changes any time soon because direct federal government employees only make up 9 percent of the region’s workforce. “Ninety percent work in the private sector, many are government contract related, but nonetheless, given the highly educated workforce in the DC region, many companies want to tap the workforce,” he said.
Feature image courtesy Karen Roach/stock.adobe.com
