As this month’s numbers show, the prices that residential real estate properties are commanding in the City of Falls Church are continuing to skyrocket, and no one seems to think they will level off anytime soon. The City’s average single family home is now going for $1,297,818, and some are getting closer to $3 million.

Certainly Ryan McLaughlin, CEO of the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors (NVAR) doesn’t seem to think things are slowing down just yet, and that came across in his remarks to the monthly luncheon of the Falls Church Chamber Commerce held at the Italian Cafe this week.

In the context of supply and demand, the market is reeling from extraordinary demands of the latter to the point that the average single family home in Falls Church is now going for $1,297,818, clearly the highest number in the immediate region where averages are $959,420 for Arlington, $885,650 for Fairfax County, $839,029 for Alexandria and $756,169 for Fairfax City.

There was a strong contingent of real estate folks in the audience for McLaughlin’s talk, and one of the major subjects bandied about had to do with the recent legal settlement whose changes impacting the buying and selling of real estate will go into effect in just a month, on August 17.

McLaughlin and a number of realtors present for the talk claimed the issue is primarily one of “transparency” in negotiations between buyers, sellers and their respective agents, saying that Virginia has had laws already in effect addressing this since 2012.

Their comments seemed at odds with reports in the Wall Street Journal, where it was noted in a July 15 article that “analysts at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods have predicted that the changes (resulting from the lawsuit settlement-ed.) could lead to a 30 percent reduction in the $100 billion that Americans pay in real estate commissions every year,” noting that the “typical commission of five to six percent of purchase price, split between the seller’s agent and the the buyer’s agent, is among the highest in the world.”

Buyer agents will be required to sign contracts with their agents, which consumer advocates expect will lead to more negotiations and reductions in the 2.5 to three percent buyer agent commissions that are now common.

But McLaughlin and some of the more seasoned realtors in the room did not share that view. In fact, for McLaughlin and NVAR, the key issue confronting the industry is the urgent need to increase the housing supply.

McLaughlin claimed that “the long-term strength of this region may be linked to housing affordability.” He distinguished carefully between so-called “affordable housing,” which suggests forms of government mandated subsidies, and “housing affordability” that simply means that the amount of housing available impacts the cost.

On that score, he said NVAR lobbies in favor of any form of expanding the housing supply, from backing “missing middle” zoning initiatives in Arlington, as controversial as they have been, to new legal incentives for accessory dwelling units that will soon be coming up in the City of Falls Church.

He said that “cutting red tape to put more housing onto the market” is key.

As constrained by supply limitations in this region as they have been, real estate sales have been major economic drivers here, with a $38.7 billion impact, and the creation of 187,000 jobs for a net $12.8 billion labor impact, and a gross regional product of $22.4 billion.

But the numbers he cited for cost growth in Falls Church are staggering, with the average home now valued at $1,297,818 representing a 25.9 percent growth in just a year, compared to an 8.6 percent median price growth to $780,000 in the region overall. Nationally, the median price for a home is $389,500.

Projections for the coming year for the region have sales down 10 percent regionally, median prices up three percent and mortgage rates stabilized.

Local realtor Tori McKinney said that sellers are finally willing to sell now, putting many more properties onto the market, while another realtor said that adjustable rates are now becoming popular, and that an interest rate of six percent is becoming the “new normal.”