What 44.6% Selling Below Asking Means for Your Number (Part 12 of 30: The Fort Washington Files)
This is Part 12 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.
Two numbers out of the same Bright MLS export look like they contradict each other. Across 361 closed Fort Washington sales this year, 44.6 percent closed below their original list price, the largest of the three possible outcomes. And the median sold-to-original ratio across those same 361 sales was exactly 1.0000, meaning the middle sale closed for precisely what it first asked.
Both are correct. Understanding how they fit together is one of the more useful things a Fort Washington seller can learn before setting a list price, because almost every headline about this market picks one of the two numbers and leaves the other out.
The three-way split
Every closed sale in the export falls into one of three buckets when you compare final sale price to original list price:
- Sold above original list: 34.6 percent
- Sold at original list: 20.8 percent
- Sold below original list: 44.6 percent
The below-original group is the largest single bucket. It is not a majority. That distinction is the whole explanation.
How a median of exactly 1.0000 works
Add the first two buckets together. 34.6 percent sold above original and 20.8 percent sold at original, which means 55.4 percent of Fort Washington closings this year finished at or above the price they first asked. The remaining 44.6 percent finished below it.
A median is the middle value when every sale is lined up in order. Line up 361 Fort Washington sales from the lowest sold-to-original ratio to the highest, and the 181st sale is the median. Because more than half the sales land at 100 percent or better, that 181st sale sits inside the at-or-above group. It lands on 1.0000.
So the median is not describing a typical negotiation. It is describing where the line falls in a market split almost in half. The 20.8 percent that closed at exactly original list is a big, flat block sitting right on the hinge point, and it is what pins the median to a clean 1.0000 rather than to something like 0.98.
That flat block is not an accident either, and Part 3 of this series explained where it comes from.
The block sitting on the hinge
Of the 361 Fort Washington closings, 257 never reduced their price at any point. That group carried a median of 11 days on market, a median sale price of $474,000, and sold at exactly 100 percent of original list.
The other 104 cut their price at least once. That group carried a median of 60 days on market, a median sale price of $461,750, and sold at 94.83 percent of original list. The median cut among them was $25,000, or 5.0 percent of original.
There are the two halves of this market in one comparison. The never-cut group is where the at-original and above-original outcomes concentrate. The cut group is where most of the below-original outcomes live, and it finished at 94.83 percent of original list after a median of 60 days rather than 11.
A seller does not get to pick which group they land in after the fact. They pick it at the listing appointment, with the opening number.
Where the below-original share concentrates
Sorted by how long the home took to sell, the below-original share climbs almost without interruption. Across all 361 Fort Washington closings:
Homes that closed within 7 days of listing sold below original 13.0 percent of the time. There were 100 of them, 27.7 percent of all sales, at a median of $479,000. At 8 to 14 days it was 25.8 percent across 66 sales. At 15 to 30 days, 42.6 percent across 68 sales. At 31 to 60 days, 72.5 percent across 69 sales. At 61 to 90 days, 82.6 percent across 23 sales. Past 90 days, 94.3 percent across 35 sales.
So the 44.6 percent figure is not evenly distributed. It is a blend of a fast group where selling below asking was unusual and a slow group where it was nearly universal. The zip-code-wide average sits in the middle and describes almost no individual house.
By financing type, the split moves too
Donnell also sorted the below-original share by how the buyer paid:
- Conventional: 181 closings, median $470,000, 17 days, 40 percent sold below original
- FHA: 78 closings, median $460,000, 26 days, 46 percent below original
- VA: 59 closings, median $550,000, 19 days, 46 percent below original
- Cash: 30 closings, median $330,000, 9 days, 63 percent below original
Cash is the outlier at 63 percent, and it is also the smallest group and the lowest median price at $330,000 with the fastest median at 9 days. Those numbers tend to travel together, and Part 26 of this series takes that group apart on its own.
The important read for a seller is that the three financed groups, which account for 318 of the 361 closings, all land between 40 and 46 percent below original. The spread by loan type is narrower than the spread by days on market, which was 13.0 percent to 94.3 percent.
The 34.6 percent that beat their asking price
The bucket that gets the least attention is the one a third of Fort Washington sellers landed in. More than a third of the 361 closings, 34.6 percent, finished above the original list price.
That is a larger share than most sellers assume when they hear that the market has cooled. It is also a reminder that the three buckets are not a ranking of luck. The above-original group and the never-cut group overlap heavily, because a home priced where the local buyer pool can reach it draws more than one interested party, and more than one interested party is how a sale finishes above asking.
Look at the fast end of the days on market table again. The 100 Fort Washington homes that closed within 7 days of listing carried a median sale price of $479,000, which is above the $470,000 zip code median, and only 13.0 percent of them sold below original. That group is where most of the above-original outcomes sit. They did not get there by asking more. They got there by asking a number that produced immediate competition.
The county cross-check
Fort Washington did not do anything strange here relative to its county.
PGCAR's August 2026 Market Watch reported that Prince George's County sellers received an average of 98.7 percent of original list price, versus 98.5 percent a year earlier. In July 2026, PGCAR reported 99.1 percent. The county median sale price in August was $445,000, up 1.1 percent year over year, against 2,134 active listings, up 15.5 percent, and an average of 38 days on market, up 18.8 percent.
An average in the high 98s across the whole county is consistent with a market where a slight majority of sales finish at or above original and a large minority finish modestly below. It is not consistent with a market where buyers are routinely taking large bites out of asking prices.
What a seller should take from all of this
The wrong lesson is to add a cushion. If a seller reads 44.6 percent below asking and concludes they should list high to leave negotiating room, the data says that plan runs into trouble quickly.
Fort Washington's failed listings show what the cushion costs. Of the 505 listings that left the market this year, 144 did so without selling, a 28.5 percent failure rate. That group carried a median original list price of $534,748 against $479,900 for the closed group. Half of them cut their price, with a median cut of $25,000, and still did not sell. Only 29 percent of closed listings ever cut at all.
And they were not overpriced by the measure most people reach for. Failed listings were priced at $267 per square foot on original list against $273 for closed listings, on homes that were actually larger at a median 1,952 square feet above grade versus 1,716. They were priced at an absolute number the local buyer pool could not reach.
The right lesson is narrower and more useful. In Fort Washington in 2026, the original list price was the price that got tested. The market answered it fast or it answered it slowly, and the slow answer was almost always lower.
The three questions to ask before setting the number
First, is this price inside a band where the buyer pool is deep? Sorted by original list price, listings that opened between $300,000 and $400,000 failed 17.5 percent of the time, the lowest rate in the zip code, across 80 closings. Between $400,000 and $500,000 the failure rate was 22.7 percent across 116 closings. Above $800,000 it was 59.4 percent, with 19 failures against just 13 closed sales.
Second, what is standing on the shelf right now? As of September 17, 2026, Fort Washington had 115 active listings at a median list price of $499,900, down from a median original list of $520,000. Forty-eight of them, 42 percent, had been on market more than 60 days. Fifty-eight, 50 percent, had already cut. That is roughly 2.9 months of supply against the 2026 closing pace.
Third, what does the payment look like? Freddie Mac's survey for the week ending September 17, 2026 put the 30-year fixed at 6.95 percent and the 15-year at 6.26 percent, up from 6.76 percent the prior week and up from 6.26 percent a year earlier. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun, on September 16, 2026, described rates moving from 6 percent in late February to 7 percent that week and called 7 percent the new normal. Whatever a seller asks, a financed buyer has to carry it monthly.
Set the number once, and set it right
A list price in Fort Washington is not an opening bid, and the data in this post is the reason. The sellers who got 100 percent of their original number were overwhelmingly the ones who never had to move off it, and they were gone in a median of 11 days. Donnell Williams Jr. is the broker-owner of DMV Prime Properties at 12815 Old Fort Road in Fort Washington, and he prices houses in this zip code off his own closed data rather than off a percentage rule. He will show a seller which of the three buckets homes like theirs landed in this year and what opening number keeps them in the first two. Call 301.818.0313 or email donnell@dmvprimerealty.com for an opinion of value with the comparables attached.
Part 13 of The Fort Washington Files answers the question sellers have been asking since the rules changed: do Maryland sellers still pay the buyer's agent?
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