The District of Columbia’s home sale market has experienced dramatic changes in recent years. There were 1,806 (20 percent) more homes sold in the District in 2021 than in 2018, partly due to the 30-year mortgage rate being cut by one-third to 2.96 percent over the same period.  Conversely, there were 3,954 (36.6 percent) fewer homes sold in 2023 than in 2021, largely due to the average mortgage rate more than doubling over the same period (Figure 1).

We recently released our 2023 update on environmental, public safety, transportation, tax administration, and equity tax expenditures found in the D.C. code. This update outlines changes to these tax expenditures since we last cataloged them using 2016 tax data.

Washington, DC is synonymous with the federal government, and often, the size of its workforce is the measure of its impact on the District’s economy. However, as important as the people working for the government are to its economy, federal procurement spending – the act of the government buying goods and services from private companies – might be a more significant economic engine for the District than the federal workforce. Here's why: 

Below is the letter and accompanying presentation our office sent to the D.C. Mayor and Council, outlining our latest quarterly revenue estimate for September 2024. You can find the full letter with data appendices here. The presentation in powerpoint format is here.