August 2024: Surprising Regional Mobility Data Boosts Greater Washington Vibrancy

The Greater Washington Revive Index increased 0.6% from the previous month, boosted by surprising momentum in regional mobility trends and a relatively stable job market.

The index improved 0.4% over the past three months, reflecting the region’s resilience and anticipation of lower interest rates. The index still sits 5.9% below its level one year ago, mainly due to persistently sluggish real estate market conditions. The most recent datapoints, especially the unusually favorable mobility trends, highlight some of the larger and more positive drivers quietly underpinning Greater Washington’s vibrancy.

Mobility in the region, which is derived through anonymous tracking of cell phone movement, has surged 28% from February through July with no indication of slowing. By contrast, a mild uptick in mobility occurred during Spring 2023 but fizzled out, culminating in lower mobility figures by the end of the year. Even in 2022, which benefitted from pent-up demand from the throes of the pandemic, mobility began losing momentum in April and peaked by June.

Something unusual is driving the robust movement around the region in 2024. One factor may simply be the greater number of residents and visitors in Greater Washington. In fact, the region’s population has been regaining residents faster than many of its peer metros. 2023 figures showed Greater Washington’s population growing faster over the previous year than New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago—among others. Greater Washington is the only one of these regions that had regained its pre-pandemic population. These population trends have generally persisted in 2024—especially since CBRE data shows an increase of roughly 15,000 newly occupied apartment units in Greater Washington since mid-2023.

However, the real differentiator behind more robust mobility in the region this year may be economic trends. Nearly 35,000 new jobs have been created since February 2024—a new record for Greater Washington employment. In contrast, only 12,800 jobs were created during the same period in 2023, amid a decelerating pace that grounded job growth to a halt for the rest of 2023. Supplementing the job gains in 2024 are record home prices, higher stock valuations and lower inflation, potentially resulting in a favorable wealth effect on the region’s households.

Ultimately, the surprising upswing in mobility across the region arguably reflects larger and more meaningful trends of a healthier region: Greater Washington’s population is growing favorably, visitors are flocking and a record number of residents are employed.

From a wider perspective, these underlying, favorable trends reflect key drivers of a flourishing region as identified by CBRE’s Shaping Tomorrow’s Cities analysis. Specifically, the importance of “Economic Dynamism” and “Demographic Potential” as drivers behind a region and city’s vibrancy, especially upon comparison of its faster-growing populace and economic dynamism to the other “Mixed Major” regional archetypes identified by CBRE.

Focusing back on the near-term, the unfolding scenario for the region’s vibrancy should be positive. Underpinning this outlook is an economic “soft landing” as employment growth already reasserts itself, and lower interest rates which should spark better real estate fundamentals. But recent downwardly revised employment figures over the last year by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics may reveal a weaker economy than realized. If so, the specter of a “soft landing” may require more aggressive rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, complicating the outlook.