How Has Amazon Affected Virginia’s Housing Market?

If someone is looking for a job, Northern Virginia may be the new hot spot to land a position when Amazon’s HQ2 opens there. But good luck finding an affordable home, as the headquarters announcement caused a major shortage of homes and prices to skyrocket.

It’s official: Northern Virginia has felt the Amazon effect.

A year ago, Amazon AMZN, -0.36% announced its plans to build a pair of new headquarters as part of its so-called “HQ2” project: One in New York City, and another in Virginia. But months after this announcement, Amazon decided not to move forward with its headquarters in the Big Apple, leaving the region surrounding Arlington, Va., as the sole home to HQ2.

In Virginia, home prices remain seriously elevated, while in New York prices have fallen since Amazon backed out of its plans for a large campus there. Initially home prices in Northern Virginia rose 21% following Amazon’s announcement. A year later, the median listing price in Arlington County is $863,000 as of October 2019, up 33% year-over-year, according to Realtor.com. The median sales price in Manhattan, meanwhile, has dropped 15% in that same time to $1.04 million.

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