Perhaps the first-time homebuyers credit—which was set to expire by Nov. 30, but now is being extended—has been good to D.C.’s condo market. It looks like for-sale condos are being snapped up around the city.

Last week, we heard that Union Row, the mammoth 14th Street complex with some 270 units, was nearly sold out. This week, McWilliams|Ballard announced that Ten Ten Mass, located near Mount Vernon Square, had finally unloaded the last of its 163 condos.

Yes, both buildings have been on the market for several years. Ten Ten Mass first began sales in 2005, before the building had completed construction. Union Row completed construction in 2007, and began pre-sales in late 2005.  But sales have been moving at a speedy pace recently—or at least they were according to the last numbers I saw.* A recent Delta Associates report noted that condo prices will probably start to rise in the District and the Arlington/Alexandria areas given the current number of units for sale.

*MRIS stats show that condo/coop sales in D.C. (between $100,000 and $5 million) dropped off slightly between August 2009 and September 2009, with 296 and 274 sales respectively. But that sales were up significantly between September 2009 and September 2008, which reported 194 sales.

Delta Associates third quarter condo report was released yesterday, and the numbers look good—well, better than usual—for the District. I did not spot the term “condo glut” once. In the last few months, several projects were cancelled and a few were “reprogrammed,” but Delta expects that demand will rise again soon here and across the river in Arlington and Alexandria. As we reported during the last go-round, it looks like prices won’t be falling too much more.

• In the last year, condo prices dropped three percent in the District, compared to six percent in the entire metropolitan area.

• The report suggests that condo prices will probably start to rise in the District and the Arlington/Alexandria areas given the current number of units for sale. (”History tells us that at 2 to 2.5 years of inventory and below,prices tend to move up smartly. Currently, Arlington County & the City of Alexandria and the District have the lowest inventory-to-sales ratios in the metro area. Prices declined the least during the past twelve months in these two submarkets.”)

• Price increases may lead to new developments in “select submarkets,” likely D.C. and Arlington/Alexandria. The report suggests that in the next 12 to 18 months, “we may see a trend of apartment projects switching to condos in select submarkets due to a tightened condo pipeline and increased demand.” And a waves of new developments may start rippling through high-demand areas in 2011.

Some bad news, but glimmers of a turnaround…

Delta Associates latest condo report was released today, showing that the DC-area pipeline is drying up and that condo prices have dipped a tiny amount in the city.  There are fewer and fewer area projects converting from condos to apartments.This year, 15 condo projects—totaling 2,432 units—were canceled.

At least one blogger is proffering that there will be some project reversions—buildings that started out condo, then became apartments and then went back to condo. “The takeaway for anyone contemplating buying a new condo is that, if Delta is right, prices won’t go much lower than they are right now,” writes Will Smith with UrbanTurf.

Here are some more stats from the Washington D.C. market:

• In the District, the median condo re-sale price is up 2.9 percent.
• The average price per square foot is $510 in Washington D.C. ($480 in Arlington/Alexandria; $410 in Montgomery County)
• The average asking price for D.C. condos has fallen 3.4 percent in the last year.
• The average effective price for D.C. condos has fallen 2.6 percent in the last year.

In the D.C. Metro area:

• New condo sales during the second quarter of 2009 were double the amount of the first quarter and reached about 600 units for the first time since the third quarter of 2007.

• Prices continue to decline, but the rate of the decline is slowing.

• Concessions are down in the District, but up in the suburbs. Metro-wide, concessions are up slightly, averaging 3.7 percent of the purchase price of Mid-Year 2009 (up to 20 basis points from one year ago.)

• Projects that have sold out in the past two years have averaged about three sales a month.

The Lacey, a boutique 26-unit condo building at the corner of 11th and Florida NW, has released another set of price drops after a previous round in May (see below the jump). Over the weekend, someone asked me how the condo market was faring, and whether prices in D.C. had dropped substantially. Well, Delta Associates has a new report coming out soon, showing that prices for new and converted D.C. condos have fallen 2.6 percent in the last year—so not considerably.  In NoVa, the drop was only 2.9 percent. But in Maryland, it was more substantial: 7.6 percent. (Washington Business Journal got the numbers early.)

Here’s a listing of prices from last month:

Or read the highlights below.

• Across the region, the number of homes sold rose 15 percent, with the largest increase in sales in Loudoun, Prince William and Frederick County, where unit volume was up 40 percent from a year ago.
• The average homes price in Washington declined 22.3 percent from a year ago, with steeper declines in the outer suburbs.
• In some areas, lower prices mean that the cost of owning is now comparable to the cost of renting a home.
• Close in homes in the core are selling in 96 days. Homes in the outer suburbs are taking 107 days. Homes in the inner suburbs are taking 117 days.
• Homes sold in the first quarter of 2009 closed for 89.9 percent of list price, the lowest since before 2003.

• “The District accounts for two-thirds of net new condo sales. During the 3rd quarter, there were 262 new unit sales in the metro area. Although sales activity fell metro-wide almost by half compared to the second quarter, most of the inner communities reached sales milestones, led by the District. There were 174 sales in the District, the highest quarterly total in over a year, and accounted for two thirds of all sales this quarter in the metro area. However, there is still a risk of buyers dropping contracts or projects reprogramming to rentals as buildings set to deliver in the District during the 4th Quarter.”

• “The District’s 36-month pipeline of projects has declined to 6,504 units as of September 2008—a 9% decrease from its peak. This figure includes only those units that we believe are probable to move forward as planned.”

• “[In the District] projected deliveries for the next 12 months stand at just over 900 units – a 58% decline from deliveries from the preceding 12 months.”

• In the Washington area, “in the second quarter of 2008, 14 condominium projects were canceled, totaling 2,685 units. In the third quarter of 2008, 10 projects were canceled, totaling 3,522 units. Of those changing course, 6 projects with 1,552 units, were added to the Class A development pipeline. Since the first quarter of 2006, over 28,000 condominium units have been reprogrammed and added to the Class A apartment pipeline.”