WSJ Says Exurb Prices Still Weak (Arlington, Hampton: real estate, home builders, neighborhood)

[tysonsengineer]

Wall Street Journal, those damned progressive hippies, wrote another article talking about how if you are living further from jobs, then your house is losing value (IE not keeping up with other regions)

Home Builders Need More Land | The Outlook - WSJ.com

Hasn't effected this area only because growth has been limited by zoning within the urban regions, so artificially the price has spread further out, but when you look at parts of PWC, Loudoun, and Stafford the prices are reflecting these same trends.

[Caladium]

Hasn't happened in my neighborhood in Loudoun. Prices are holding up just fine, and homes seem to sell pretty quickly. But then again, you're talking about exurbs. East of Rt. 15 we're officially classified as "suburb" not "exurb." (Although from what I hear places west of Rt. 15 like Waterford, Purcellville, Round Hill etc. are also doing just fine.)

Also, lots of people work in the outer burbs, so the issue of "living further from jobs" isn't as big here as it might be in other cities.

Haven't we had this discussion about a bazillion times already?

[JD984]

I don't really think of most of Loudoun as an "exurb," given how many jobs it has and how close it is to major job centers in the Tysons/Dulles/Route 28 area of Fairfax. And I haven't heard about huge half-developments there that are just vacant and sitting, like you hear about in some other parts of the country.

I hope, TE, that you're not rooting for some Loudoun development to suffer this fate in the future just so it will help support some point you'd like to make about where development should be concentrated. No one likes an eye-sore. I will say that I found this quote from a Loudoun executive in a recent Post article about the Silver Line extension to Loudoun rather obnoxious:

“It gives us a chance to stick it to our neighbors to the east, instead of them arrogantly thanking us for educating their workers’ children,” Joe Paciulli, vice chairman of the Loudoun Economic Development Commission, said. “If we can live and work here, it’s a lot better than living here and working there.”

I'd never really felt that Fairfax was outsourcing the education of its workers' children to Loudoun or "arrogantly thanking" Loudoun for operating a school system. I was always under the impression that it was people in Loudoun, not Fairfax, who decided that housing should be built in Loudoun, and schools should be opened, even if the jobs were largely to the east.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by JEB77

I will say that I found this quote from a Loudoun executive in a recent Post article about the Silver Line extension to Loudoun rather obnoxious:

“It gives us a chance to stick it to our neighbors to the east, instead of them arrogantly thanking us for educating their workers’ children,” Joe Paciulli, vice chairman of the Loudoun Economic Development Commission, said. “If we can live and work here, it’s a lot better than living here and working there.”

I agree, that IS obnoxious. You know, pardon me for going OT for a moment but The Post has been printing some really obnoxious articles lately. I stopped reading Wapo about 5 years ago because the writing became godawful, and today I happened to see an article that reminded me why I stopped reading it. It rubbed me the wrong way, and for reasons like the one you saw it featured obnoxious quotes. The article I saw had a quote about flooding in Hampton Roads that I found unfair and inflammatory--and to make it worse it was a quote from "an activist." Not even an activist who would give a name, just "an activist." Wow, what a reliable source.

I wonder if they're deliberately trying to print obnoxious quotes because people who they offend by being obnoxious are the only people reading the paper anymore.

[cdmurphy]

Originally Posted by JEB77

I don't really think of most of Loudoun as an "exurb," given how many jobs it has and how close it is to major job centers in the Tysons/Dulles/Route 28 area of Fairfax. And I haven't heard about huge half-developments there that are just vacant and sitting, like you hear about in some other parts of the country.

I will say that I found this quote from a Loudoun executive in a recent Post article about the Silver Line extension to Loudoun rather obnoxious:

“It gives us a chance to stick it to our neighbors to the east, instead of them arrogantly thanking us for educating their workers’ children,” Joe Paciulli, vice chairman of the Loudoun Economic Development Commission, said. “If we can live and work here, it’s a lot better than living here and working there.”

I'd never really felt that Fairfax was outsourcing the education of its workers' children to Loudoun or "arrogantly thanking" Loudoun for operating a school system. I was always under the impression that it was people in Loudoun, not Fairfax, who decided that housing should be built in Loudoun, and schools should be opened, even if the jobs were largely to the east.

I think he was referring to Loudoun's repeat losses to Fairfax like the VW headquarters, Hilton, etc. Some of those employees moved to Loudoun. (There are several VWs and Audis in my neighborhood with special "HQ" license plates.) Fairfax gets the big corporate tax dollars, Loudoun gets more kids in the schools.

He said it at the county input meeting a few weeks ago. I was there, and that is what I understood from the context of his remarks.

[CleoShahateet]

If you look at the data provided by RBI | Real estate data, analytics, and business intelligence for real estate professionals it shows that this is not true in this area. If you look at the areas going west in order and look at Fairfax county, PWC and Fauquier county's average sold price year on year comparisons and found average sold price up 3.81% in Fairfax, 6.58% in PWC and Fauquier 43.77%.

[tysonsengineer]

I wasn't trying to root against anywhere. I root for Loudoun several times a week. I consistently talk up the quality of Western Loudouns agro-tourism, the very nice restaurant selections, the nice housing options, the decent schools, and frankly Loudoun is a lot better off economically than most suburban regions of the country with Dulles/AOL/Raytheon.

Not sure how this got pegged on Loudoun, my issue with Loudoun are very specific to clogging up roads because they refuse to spend money on infrastructure and control outrageous sprawl developments. Nothing about that means that I want Loudoun or any part of the world to fail. This is just an article talking about places that are further out not keeping pace with housing prices that are closer in, a topic that has been discussed before, but in this particular case has information backing it.

It also discusses the importance of location location location instead of sticks and bricks, and the fact that job magnetism is still the number one indication in this country at this time on what a "good location" vs a "bad location" is. That hasn't effected this area for 2 reasons, urban areas aren't keeping pace with demand, therefore some people who would like to live closer in and reduce their SQFT can't out of lack of supply, causing all regions to increase to some extent the value of their homes. And 2 because this area has had this dynamic for decades, and DC has lost a lot of its corporate holdings due to lack of space/new development that jobs have relocated further west keeping what other areas would call exurbs remaining as suburbs, and in some cases like Tysons/Reston those areas are beginning to be considered new urban cities.

[tysonsengineer]

Originally Posted by CleoShahateet

If you look at the data provided by RBI | Real estate data, analytics, and business intelligence for real estate professionals it shows that this is not true in this area. If you look at the areas going west in order and look at Fairfax county, PWC and Fauquier county's average sold price year on year comparisons and found average sold price up 3.81% in Fairfax, 6.58% in PWC and Fauquier 43.77%.

Mk,

Year over year from last year?

The thing about percentages are they are misleading. If you are down 40% to start with, (ie 60% of the original price), and then you gain 15% on that, well yer still down 31%. A lot of those western counties took the biggest hits, therefore their improvement appear better than Fairfax. In fairfax the housing crash did very little to home prices, in fact much of fairfax is actually above 2006 prices. I dont think anyone in their right mind is making the case that Fauquier, Stafford, and PWC withstood the housing crash as well as Loudoun/Fairfax/Arlington. The numbers just dont show that.