I talked recently to one of the long time, active agents up here on the hill and even she couldn’t get a good read.
Seems like your comment on a stand off is applicable.
My observation is that the the distress / over bought in last few years / REO stuff has been mostly worked thru. In the past many of the homes that came up were downsizing or estates ( many of these ). I suspect that we are moving back to normal times in that there are a relative limited number of these that come up in a quarter. In the past in more normal times ( what ever that is ) they were priced more accurately and moved relatively quickly. I believe there is a general backlog of people that would like to live in DC. So when a house came up it was quickly looked at and evaluated and if it fit offers were submitted and if not the buyers waited till the next one came along.
I think today we are almost if not back to that situation and buyers just have to wait it out, hence the reason for the low inventory.