What happens when the swamp drains? All the critters hiding in it find someplace else to go. And fast, before predators begin picking them apart.

That process may have already begun in the biggest swamp of them all. According to the Daily Mail, the housing shortage in the Washington DC area has turned almost overnight into a glut. Prices have fallen by double-digit percentages since Donald Trump got elected and Elon Musk started rooting out profligate spending, with thousands of listings appearing over the last thirty days.

Is this true? I want to believe. The Daily Mail got the data from analysts at The Kobeissi Letter (TKL), which got it from Redfin:

In November, the median home in the nation's capital was worth $699,000, according to Redfin. 

By February, the median home value dropped 20 percent, bringing the price down to $560,000.

TKL found there are now nearly 8,000 homes listed for sale in the Washington, DC metro area, and almost half of them have been put on the market in the last 30 days.

TKL is a subscription-only investor newsletter, but they do have an active Twitter/X account. TKL posted this data in an intriguing thread on Saturday. Besides the above data, TKL also drilled down more and got an even better look at what may be happening in the FedZone:

Year-over-year, home listings in the Washington DC metro area are up ~23%.

Parts of Virginia are seeing 60%-70%+ jumps in year-over-year listings.

Keep in mind, this is during the winter months in a housing market that has been historically LOW on supply.

Truly insane. pic.twitter.com/mgbeUCeCLG

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) February 15, 2025

This accelerated after Donald Trump and Elon Musk announced the federal employee buyout plan, TKL notes. However, this may be the piece de résistance, heavy on résistance: 

Here's where it gets even more interesting:

There has been a SURGE in new listings in Washington, DC with a listing price of $1,000,000+.

There are now 525 listings of $1+ million and 44 listings worth $5+ million.

This suggests high-profile job exits are rising. pic.twitter.com/WR2bDApWt0

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) February 15, 2025

Why would federal employees own million-dollar-plus homes? The answer: They don't. Those are not likely homes owned by federal employees, but rather homes owned by executives at NGOs who receive the grift money from federal bureaucrats at places like USAID. In the first term, these wealthy activists would have led La Résistance 1.0, or at the very least occupied themselves with the usual Beltway task of ensuring a Republican president couldn't put his policies fully into place. 

If the Flight of the Progressive State includes the multi-millionaire class, then the swamp may truly be draining for the first time in decades -- if ever.

But are these figures accurate? It's tough to pin down, although there's no reason to believe that TKL is partisan in its observations. Long & Foster, another investor analyst service, also began seeing a sharp decline in the DC real-estate market, but their data is for January only. Even so, they also saw signs of a sharp fall-off, even comparing the same season last year, but the data was a bit mixed:

There was a decrease in total units sold in January, with 450 sold this month in Washington DC Real Estate versus 553 last month, a decrease of 19%. This month's total units sold was higher than at this time last year, an increase of 23% versus January 2024.

Versus last year, the total number of homes available this month is higher by 144 units or 7%. The total number of active inventory this January was 2,166 compared to 2,022 in January 2024. This month's total of 2,166 is lower than the previous month's total supply of available inventory of 2,273, a decrease of 5%.

Last January, the median sale price for Washington DC Homes was $605,000. This January, the median sale price was $552,500, a decrease of 9% or $52,500 compared to last year. The current median sold price is 10% lower than in December.

Redfin sees much the same situation, with median prices down 8.6% and price per square foot down 7.2%, both year-on-year. However, the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors (GCAAR) paints a more pessimistic picture of their market in January, comprising both DC and Montgomery County in Maryland:

• New listings: Up 104% over December
• Median sold price: Down 12% over December and down 8.3% year on year
• Active listings up 28.5% over the 5-year January average

Clearly, something is happening to the DC market, which extends beyond the borders of the district itself. And that has implications beyond a potential housing glut around the nation's capital. Both Maryland and Virginia have deep-blue districts bordering DC that have some impact on their state elections, especially in Virginia, where the northern counties (called NOVA) have become more or less determinative in their elections. I wrote about NOVA in my 2016 book Going Red, noting that the top three counties in the nation for household income were Loudon, Fairfax, and Arlington, all extensions of the DC federal-bureaucratic state industry. Three others were in the top 13 counties nationwide for that measure as well. 

Maryland is probably too blue for a Burexodus to matter, but Virginia isn't. If those who benefited from the pre-DOGE progressive grift in DC are packing up and moving out, those counties may get a lot less Democrat in coming elections. That would allow the rest of Virginia (ROVA), more conservative politically and culturally, more of a say in state election outcomes. 

Stay tuned. DOGE may create even more earthquakes in culture than politics by the time it finishes its run through the bureaucratic state.