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REVIVE: Exploring What's Making Greater Washington Vibrant

A partnership with the Washington Business Journal

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REVIVE, our proprietary index of Greater Washington activity, supports regional leaders in navigating these complex and challenging times.

The index empowers businesses to monitor and forecast the scale of change in the region as the way we live, work and play changes over time. We have partnered with the Washington Business Journal to publish the results of the REVIVE index helping Greater Washington plan for a dynamic and resilient future.

Greater Washington REVIVE Index Shows Signs of Region Stabilizing and Recovering in May

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The Greater Washington REVIVE index increased 0.9% in May from the previous month, showing a region recovering from initial economic and employment shocks earlier in the year. Since February, the REVIVE index has increased 2.3%, a subtle but clear rebound after the steep decline of 6.2% between December 2024 and February of this year.

Boosting the region’s vibrancy over the last month was an 8.9% jump in the Investor Sentiment composite and a 4.7% increase in the Mobility & Visitation composite.

  • The improvement in local investor sentiment in May was caused by a greater abundance and diversity in local commercial real estate and apartment investors, as well as higher equity prices for local regional banks and Fortune 500 companies.
  • The rising Mobility & Visitation composite was boosted by Greater Washington hotel occupancies in May that were their highest for that month since 2019, Metro ridership that increased 21% over the last year, and measures of resident and visitor mobility around the region that continued to soar.
  • Also helping the index was a slight increase in the Innovation composite, which benefited from a 2.6% jump in local federal government contracts and awards originating from research and innovation offices in several agencies.

Weighing down on the index again this month were the Commercial Real Estate and Federal Government Composite indices. A lesser drag to the index was revealed in the region’s housing market, which showed weak performance in May.


  • The Commercial Real Estate composite weakened for a third consecutive month and is down 9.0% since February. Typically a lagging indicator, commercial real estate sales activity and values weakened through May.
  • The Federal Government composite declined for a fourth consecutive month and is 12.2% lower than January. Local federal government employment and locally awarded contracts continued to decline in May.
  • The region’s housing market is showing signs of softening. The average house price in Greater Washington slightly declined 0.2% in May after a smaller decrease in April. These declines are the first the region has seen since a string of them occurred beginning in the second half of 2022.

Keep up with the pace of Greater Washington as we monitor the region as 2025 develops.

REVIVE Index Archive

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