FHA in Fort Washington: 78 Closings and What They Looked Like (Part 25 of 30: The Fort Washington Files)
This is Part 25 of The Fort Washington Files from Donnell Williams Jr. and DMV Prime Properties, a thirty-part series built entirely on what 689 Fort Washington listings actually did in 2026.
Buyers using FHA financing get told, in a lot of markets, that they are working at a disadvantage. In Fort Washington that framing runs into a simple counting problem. Of the 361 closed sales in Donnell's Bright MLS export covering 689 Fort Washington listings tracked through September 17, 2026, 78 were financed with FHA.
That is roughly one in five closings in this zip code. FHA is not a fringe path in Fort Washington. It is a mainstream one, and the numbers around it are worth knowing before an offer goes out.
What the FHA closings looked like
From the export, the 78 FHA-financed sales closed at a median sale price of $460,000, in a median of 26 days on market, with 46 percent closing below the original list price.
Put against the other three financing types in the same 361 closings:
- Conventional: 181 closings, $470,000 median, 17 days, 40 percent below original
- FHA: 78 closings, $460,000 median, 26 days, 46 percent below original
- VA: 59 closings, $550,000 median, 19 days, 46 percent below original
- Cash: 30 closings, $330,000 median, 9 days, 63 percent below original
The FHA median of $460,000 sits $10,000 under the conventional median and $10,000 under the zip code's overall median sale price of $470,000. On price, FHA buyers in Fort Washington were shopping essentially in the middle of this market, not at the bottom of it.
The 26 days is the number to deal with honestly
FHA closings took the longest median time on market of the four financing types. Twenty-six days against 17 for conventional, 19 for VA and 9 for cash.
The zip code median across all 361 closings was 18 days, so FHA ran eight days longer than the market as a whole.
That gap should not be argued away. What it should be put next to is the rest of the market's timeline. The standing Fort Washington inventory as of September 17, 2026 carried a median 43 days on market and a median 60 cumulative days, with 42 percent of the 115 active listings past 60 days. Against a shelf that looks like that, a 26-day median is still fast.
The export records what closed and how long it took. It does not record why any individual transaction moved at the pace it did, and this post does not speculate about that.
The 46 percent below original, in context
FHA closings came in below their original list price 46 percent of the time, matching VA and running above conventional's 40 percent.
The zip code baseline puts that in perspective. Across all 361 Fort Washington closings, 34.6 percent sold above original list, 20.8 percent sold at it and 44.6 percent sold below, with a median sold-to-original ratio of exactly 1.0000.
So FHA's 46 percent is close to the zip code's own 44.6 percent. It is not a category behaving strangely. It is a category behaving roughly like the market it is buying in.
What $460,000 reaches in this zip code
Fort Washington's median closing in 2026 was $470,000 for 1,716 above-grade square feet at $265 per square foot, on a median 0.28 acre lot, with a median year built of 1976.
At a $460,000 median, FHA buyers here were transacting at a price point that reaches a large share of the local housing stock. The failure data supports that. Listings that opened between $400,000 and $500,000 produced 34 failures against 116 closings, a 22.7 percent failure rate, while the band above $800,000 produced 19 failures against 13 closings, a 59.4 percent failure rate.
In other words, the FHA price range is the part of this market where the most transactions actually happen and where listings are most likely to find a buyer.
Where the county programs fit, and where one of them does not
Prince George's County runs several purchase assistance programs, and Fort Washington buyers should know which ones can reach them.
Pathway to Purchase offers up to $50,000. It requires income at or under 80 percent of area median income and first-time buyer status, defined as no ownership in the past three years. It is a zero-interest, deferred second with no forgiveness in years one through five, then 10 percent per year for ten years, fully forgiven at fifteen years of owner occupancy. Repayment is triggered by sale, transfer, refinance, or ceasing to use the home as a primary residence. Its price caps are $485,000 for new construction and $448,000 for resale.
The Critical Workforce Housing Assistance Program offers up to $50,000 or 25 percent of the purchase price, whichever is less, as a zero-interest deferred second forgiven at 10 percent per year over ten years with continued owner occupancy. Eligibility runs to full-time PGCPS teachers, full-time nurses in medical offices or hospitals located in Prince George's County, and full-time first responders employed by Prince George's County Government agencies, including firefighters, EMTs, correctional officers, police officers, public safety dispatchers and deputy sheriffs. It requires first-time buyer status, income at or under 120 percent AMI and an eight-hour homebuyer education course.
The Homeownership Equity Program, which offers up to $30,000 with 20 percent forgiven annually over five years, does not reach Fort Washington. That program requires the property to be inside the I-495 Capital Beltway, and Fort Washington is outside it. A buyer shopping 20744 should take that one off the list at the start rather than discover it late.
All three require a county-approved certified lender. Buyers do not apply to the county directly.
The $448,000 cap against a $470,000 median
This is the specific constraint worth naming, because it is where a program and a local market meet awkwardly.
Pathway to Purchase caps a resale purchase at $448,000. Fort Washington's median 2026 sale price was $470,000. That is a $22,000 gap, and it means the middle of this market sits above the cap.
It does not mean the program is unusable here. It means a Pathway to Purchase buyer in Fort Washington is shopping the lower half of the zip code's price distribution, and should be told that on day one rather than after three weekends of showings.
Several Fort Washington subdivisions closed 2026 at medians at or under that cap. Rose Valley Estates closed 11 sales at a $440,000 median. Murray Hill closed 5 at $430,000. River Bend closed 6 at $428,000. Apple Grove closed 9 at $425,000. Fort Washington closed 10 at $395,000. Rosedale Estates closed 8 at $372,500. Pinewood Hill closed 7 at $350,000 and Prophecy closed 7 at $350,000. Devon Hills Condo closed 7 at $239,900.
Those are one-year medians on small samples, and half of any subdivision's sales fall below its median, so the reachable inventory is wider than the list suggests. Still, the map of where a $448,000 ceiling actually shops in Fort Washington is knowable in advance.
The condo question
Devon Hills Condo was the most visible condominium activity in the export, with 7 closings at a $239,900 median, in a median of 11 days, at 1,144 above-grade square feet, with a median annual property tax of $2,830 and $216 per square foot. It also had 6 listings fail to sell during the period, which is high activity on both sides of the ledger and not a judgment about the property or the people in it.
Any buyer considering a condominium anywhere in this zip code should ask their loan officer, early, how that specific property is treated under the financing they intend to use. That is a lender question with a property-specific answer, and it is much cheaper to ask before an offer than after one.
What 78 closings mean for the other side of the table
A Fort Washington seller should read the same number differently. FHA accounted for 78 of the 361 closings and VA accounted for 59, so 137 of this zip code's 2026 sales, well over a third, were financed through one of those two paths.
That is the buyer pool. A seller who decides in advance to set those contracts aside is setting aside more than a third of the market that actually closed here this year, in a market where 144 of the 505 listings that left it did so without selling, a 28.5 percent failure rate.
The pricing evidence points the same direction. Failed Fort Washington listings carried a median original list price of $534,748 against $479,900 for closed listings, and they were priced at $267 per square foot on original list against $273 for the ones that sold. They were not overpriced per foot. They were bigger, at a median 1,952 above-grade square feet against 1,716, and priced at an absolute number the local buyer pool could not reach.
FHA's $460,000 median is a data point about where that pool actually transacts. It is worth more to a seller setting a list price than any opinion about financing types.
What this post does not claim
This post makes no claims about how FHA financing works. It does not address program rules, mortgage insurance, appraisal requirements, credit standards or down payment requirements, because Donnell's export carries none of that. It carries sale prices, days on market, list price ratios and the financing type recorded at closing.
Donnell is a broker rather than a lender, a tax advisor or an attorney. Anything about loan program requirements belongs to a licensed loan officer, and anything about the county assistance programs above should be confirmed directly with Prince George's County and a county-approved certified lender, because program terms, income limits and price caps change.
Find out what the cap actually reaches before you shop
A buyer using FHA financing in Fort Washington is buying alongside 78 other households who closed here this year, at a median price $10,000 under the market as a whole. That is a normal position in this zip code, not a compromised one. Donnell Williams Jr. is the broker-owner of DMV Prime Properties at 12815 Old Fort Road in Fort Washington, and he will map a buyer's actual ceiling, assistance program or not, against the subdivisions and price bands where Fort Washington listings are most likely to close. Buyers can reach him at 301.818.0313 or donnell@dmvprimerealty.com before spending a weekend touring homes outside their range.
Part 26 of The Fort Washington Files takes apart the cash column, where 30 closings came in at a $330,000 median in 9 days with 63 percent selling below original list.
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