cost

Cost of New Construction Homes in Northern VA

elieliresidentialcom Arlington, Buyer , , , 0 Comment
Cost of New Construction Homes in Northern VA

Question: How has the cost of new construction single-family homes changed over the last few years?

Answer: First, thank you to everybody who voted in last week’s poll to decide how we would donate to locate charities. Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC) received almost 2/3 of the vote and thus a donation of nearly $1,000 to help feed our neighbors in need. Now on to this week’s real estate topic…

The cost of a single-family home has skyrocketed locally and nationwide, with the average cost of a single-family home in Northern VA increasing 31.6% from October 2019 to October 2021. This data includes resales of existing homes and new construction, with the majority of the sales being resales. Let’s take a specific look at how the cost of a new single-family home in Northern VA has changed over the last three years (hint: they also got much more expensive!).

A few quick notes about the data:
  • The data is limited to what has been entered into the MLS (Realtor database of record) and not all new construction makes it into the MLS, but the majority does and thus gives us an accurate reading of the market
  • Northern VA aggregate totals includes Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties plus the Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, and Manassas Cities
  • In the table below Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, and Manassas refer to the County, not City, portions
Here are some highlights from the data I reviewed:
  • The average cost of a new single-family home in Northern VA increased a staggering 25.9% to an average sold price over $1.6M from 2019 to 2021
  • The biggest increase from the localities I reviewed was in Aldie, which increased 37.5% to an average cost over $1.25M from 2019 to 2021
  • The most expensive County for a new single-family home is Arlington, coming in at an average sold price just over $2M in 2021, trailed only slightly by Fairfax County, with an average sold price about $100,000 less than Arlington
  • The best value, on a price per square foot basis, for new construction in 2021 is in Manassas ($173/SqFt) and Dumfries ($183/SqFt) and the least value, on price per square foot, is Mclean ($380/SqFt) and Arlington ($379/SqFt)

If you are interested in learning more about new construction options in Northern VA or the DC Metro, feel free to email me at Eli@EliResidential.com.

If you’d like a question answered in my weekly column or to discuss buying, selling, renting, or investing, please send an email to Eli@EliResidential.com. To read any of my older posts, visit the blog section of my website at EliResidential.com. Call me directly at (703) 539-2529.

Video summaries of some articles can be found on YouTube on the Ask Eli, Live With Jean playlist.

The Cost of Land in Arlington

elieliresidentialcom Arlington, Buyer, Investor , , , 0 Comment
The Cost of Land in Arlington

Question: Can you do an update of your 2017 article on the cost of land in Arlington?

Answer: In 2017 I took a look at a dataset focused on the cost of land in Arlington and lot sizes, so let’s take a look at these numbers a few years later and see just how much more expensive it is to snag a square of grass here.

Since 2017, the average lot size on all single-family homes (SFH) sold is 8,515 SqFt or about .2 acres and only five of the 4,428 SFH sold had 1+ acres, with none over 1.15 acres. Just 1.6% of sales were homes with ½ acre or more. 82.4% of SFH sold since 2017 sat on 1/10th – 1/4th acre (1/4 acre is about 11,000SqFt).

The chart below breaks down the average lot size and standard deviation of lot sizes by Arlington zip code based on sales of SFH since 2017. I also added two columns looking at the average cost of a new SFH in each zip code based on 2020-2021 sales. 22206 and 22209 didn’t have enough SFH sales to provide good data.

It’s not easy to determine the average cost of homes that get torn down or have a major remodel, so I used the same methodology as I did in 2017 and looked at the cheapest 15% of sales in each zip, by year, and assumed that these represent sales that were completely or mostly valued for the land. The chart below shows the average cost of the cheapest 15% of SFH sold in each zip, by year. The second chart is the same dataset but looks at the cost per SqFt of the lot.

The biggest downside of this methodology is that it’s not capturing sales of the best lots in certain zip codes, but I think this approach does a pretty good job of capturing average values for most sales where the lot was the entire or majority of the value.

Lots in 22201 are by far the most expensive per SqFt because they’re both expensive (highest average price for cheapest 15%) and small (third smallest average lot size by zip code, the two with smaller lots barely have any SFH lots).

While you’ll pay about $100k more for the average lot in 22207 compared to 22205, you’re most likely getting a larger lot so the cost per SqFt of those lots ends up being similar. The cheapest lots are in 22204 (by nearly $150,000), but the best value, by far, is 22213 with the average lot just $67/SqFt.

If you’d like to discuss buying, selling, investing, or renting, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at Eli@EliResidential.com.