The Real Story About 22202 Property Values (Amazon Zip Code), Part 2

Question: I have read articles about the 22202 zip code suggesting everything from extreme appreciation to homes now selling for pre-Amazon prices. Can you shed some light on what’s actually happening in that market?

Answer: A few weeks ago, I wrote part one, focusing on the performance of the 22202 (Amazon Zip Code) condo market so this week we’ll take a look at how the detached single-family market performed in the neighborhoods bordering Amazon HQ2.

One of the issues I mention in Part 1 is how much misinformation has been published elsewhere about price appreciation in 22202 and the Arlington/Alexandria markets.

This two-part column is one of my attempts to provide an accurate picture about what’s actually happening in our real estate market. The key takeaway is that the market performed very well (if you own, not if you’re a hopeful buyer) following the Amazon HQ2 announcement, but prices haven’t skyrocketed the way many articles would lead you to believe.

Market Make-up

The 22202 market offers a diverse supply of housing. This year, condos have sold from as little as $195,000 for a 500sqft studio to $1,250,000 for a 2,900sqft 3BR/3BA penthouse. The least expensive detached home sold for $630,000 to be torn down and the most expensive a 6BR/4.5BA for $1,600,000.

Homes in the area tend to be pretty old with most detached homes being built prior to the 1960s and only one condo building has delivered since 1990.

Of the 139 homes to sell in 2019, 78 were in condo buildings, 50 were detached homes, and 11 were townhouses.

22202 Detached Single-Family Performance

The tables below represent sales in 2018 and 2019 split between those that went under contract before and after Amazon’s HQ2 announcement on November 13 2018:

PeriodAvg Sold PriceAvg Sold to Org Ask PriceAvg Days on Market# SoldTax Assessed Value
Post-Amazon$995,739100.6%1353$829,742
Pre-Amazon$911,47097.6%4172$802,120

Like elsewhere in Arlington and the 22202 condo market, inventory levels took a big hit in 2019, dropping 33% from 75 sales in 2018 to 50 sales in 2019. Sales volume had ranged consistently between 69 and 76 sales since 2015.

The decline in sales certainly was not due to lack of demand, rather fewer properties hitting the market. This is evident from the sharp drop in average days on market (down 63%) and sharp increase in the average sold price to original asking price ratio (up 3%). In fact, the detached home market was so competitive that the average buyer paid over asking price.

Detached home prices in 22202 increased by an average of 9.2%, from $911k to $996k, and the median value increased by 8.5%, from $876k to $950k. Detached homes in the area vary so much from sale to sale that you can’t take the average or median price growth and apply that level of appreciation to all individual homes. When I dug into individual comparable sales pre and post Amazon announcement, I found that homes below ~$1M appreciated noticeably more than those above $1M, by about 12-15% and 5-8%, respectively.

Here are a couple of tables for those of you who want to get really far into the data. The first shows how the lower, middle, and upper quartiles changed between 2018 and 2019. The second shows how sales were distributed between different prices ranges.

Price RangeLow PriceHigh PriceAvg Price2018-2019 Increase
Pre-Amazon Lower 25%$485,000$746,888$669,784 
Pre-Amazon Middle 50%$753,000$1,049,000$869,592 
Pre-Amazon Upper 25%$1,049,000$1,537,250$1,226,846 
Post-Amazon Lower 25%$630,000$825,000$739,30810.4%
Post-Amazon Middle 50%$830,000$1,145,000$975,85212.2%
Post-Amazon Upper 25%$1,162,500$1,600,000$1,319,8227.6%
Price Range# Sold% of Sales
Post-Amazon53 
<$775k1018.9%
Middle2445.3%
>$1,125,0001935.8%
Pre-Amazon72 
<$775k2230.6%
Middle3650.0%
>$1,125,0001419.4%
22202 Tear-Down Sales

I also looked at how the Amazon announcement impacted the cost of homes being torn down (for new construction) and found that the average cost of buying a tear-down increased by 13.7% or 16.2%, depending on which data point you use. Note: I limited the data set to homes sitting on 5,000-10,000sqft lots and not all tear-down sales are entered into the MLS.

PeriodAvg Sold PriceAvg $/Sqft (lot size)# Sold
Post-Amazon$730,556$1159
Pre-Amazon$642,592$9914

I hope anybody living in or hoping to buy into the 22202 zip finds this data useful and the rest of you find it interesting! I’m going to start working on my 2019 Arlington housing market review and hope to have that published in the next few weeks.

If you ever want to meet/talk about the market or your plans to buy, sell, or invest in the DC Metro area, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at Eli@EliResidential.com.

The Real Story About 22202 Property Values (Amazon Zip Code), Part 1

Question: I have read articles about the 22202 zip code suggesting everything from extreme appreciation to homes now selling for pre-Amazon prices. Can you shed some light on what’s actually happening in that market?

Answer: After months of articles about extreme appreciation in 22202, the Amazon HQ2 zip code making up neighborhoods like Crystal City, Pentagon City, Aurora Highlands/Hills, and Arlington Ridge, there was an article published last week by the Washington Business Journal claiming that prices are now below pre-Amazon HQ2 announcement levels. The supporting data was that median sold price in November 2019 was 12% lower than November 2018 prices.

This is yet another example of lazy reporting on Amazon’s impact on local real estate with the sole intention of generating clicks. First of all, if you use the average sold price instead of median, there was a 2.3% increase in prices from November ’18 to November ’19, not a 12% decrease. Second, with a drop in total sales from 30 in 2018 to just 12 in 2019, with prices ranging from $255,000 to $1,145,000, there’s just not enough data to draw any sort of reliable conclusion on market performance by comparing the two months.

To generate reliable real estate trends, you either need a lot of data points (sales) or drill into smaller data sets. With that said, let’s dive into some real analysis on how Amazon HQ2 has impacted residential real estate for its new neighbors in 22202.

Market Make-up

The 22202 market offers a diverse supply of housing. This year, condos have sold from as little as $195,000 for a 500sqft studio to $1,250,000 for a 2,900sqft 3BR/3BA penthouse. The least expensive detached home sold for $630,000 to be torn down and the most expensive a 6BR/4.5BA for $1,600,000.

Homes in the area tend to be pretty old with most detached homes being built prior to the 1960s and only one condo building has delivered since 1990.

Of the 135 homes to sell so far in 2019, 76 were in condo buildings, 47 were detached homes, and 11 were townhouses.

Condo Market

Inventory levels in the 22202 condo market took a huge hit, dropping 40% from 130 sales in 2018 to just 76 in 2019 (with two more scheduled to close in 2019). The decline is attributed to owners choosing not to sell (holding out for more appreciation), certainly not lack of demand.

As a whole, the average sold price in the 22202 condo market increase 22.8% ($402k to $492k) and median price increased 18.6% ($379k to $450k) for properties that went under contract after Amazon’s November 13 HQ2 announcement.

However, don’t think individual property values appreciated ~20%. The entire market is skewed higher because of a big drop-off in less expensive studios (60% decline) and 1BRs (33% decline).

Let’s take a deeper look at how property values actually changed by looking at similar sales within comparable buildings. I’ve grouped all buildings along Arlington Ridge and Army Navy Drive, along Crystal Drive, and both Eclipse buildings so that we have larger sample sizes to compare pricing activity from within comparable buildings. I limited this data set to one- and two-bedroom units.

The percentages for each building group represent the change from properties sold in 2018 and 2019 that went under contract pre-Amazon announcement vs post-Amazon announcement (Nov 13 2018).

Building GroupAvg $/SqftAvg Sold PriceAvg Days on MarketAvg SqftAvg Condo Fee# Sold
Arlington Ridge – Army Navy+7.9%3.8%-36.4%-3.1%1.3%-9.5%
Post Amazon$359$385,450331,064$70938
Pre Amazon$333$371,198521,098$70142
Bella Vista+4.4%37.7%-65.4%28.8%31.8%-58.3%
Post Amazon$462$579,800101,235$7345
Pre Amazon$443$421,02529959$55712
Crystal Drive+23.5%12.3%-79.9%-10.2%8.7%54.5%
Post Amazon$506$558,618291,112$91017
Pre Amazon$410$497,5321451,238$83711
Eclipse+8.1%26.5%-65.5%16.4%14.4%-50.0%
Post Amazon$526$525,184161,000$47519
Pre Amazon$487$415,20146860$41538

There’s a ton of interesting information packed into this table, here are some of my key takeaways:

  • The two groups with enough sales to offer reliable data, AR-AN and Eclipse, suggest actual appreciation of around 8% based on $/sqft. I think $/sqft is a better measuring stick than sold price in this case.
  • Across all condo buildings, the average price of 1BR condos increased 9.8% and 2BR condos increased 12.1%
  • Not shown in this table, but calculated elsewhere, is that the standard deviation of the average sold price increased by 49% and 72% in one-and-two-bedroom condos, respectively. This highlights the variability of pricing in the area and why it’s important to drill down into the data instead of just looking at overall average and median price trends.
  • In my personal market assessment, by comparing individual sales of similar units, I believe actual property value appreciation in the 22202 condo market is 8-12% depending on factors like property condition, condo fees, bedroom count, and age of building.
  • Sales activity increased significantly along Crystal Drive and decreased only slightly along AR-AN, as long-time owners saw an opportunity to sell condos that were previously difficult to unload due to building age and high condo fees. The 80% drop in days on market along Crystal Drive is incredible.
  • I’ve said for years that I thought the Eclipse buildings (3600 and 3650 S Glebe) offer some of the best long-term value in Arlington/Alexandria, and I still believe that to be true even after Amazon price increases. It would be great if I listened to my own advice and bought an investment property there…

I’ll provide a similar analysis of the detached single-family home market in Part 2, but the next two Tuesdays are Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, so I may wait until January to publish it. If you have any questions about my analysis or you’re considering selling a condo in 22202 and would like some more specific analysis done of your property, feel free to email me at Eli@EliResidential.com.