Reston Real Estate: Looking Back and at What’s Ahead

Eve Thompson January 6, 2015 at 3:00pm

This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate.

The year 2014 was an one in Reston real estate.

It was a year marked by rapid changes that made it tricky to get listings properly positioned in the marketplace. We had a protracted winter. When the spring finally came, houses were moving fast. Then suddenly in late May and early June, it was like the air sputtered out of the balloon and things started dragging along slower and slower.

It’s not that things were not selling — they were — but there was no sense of urgency in the market. By late July, it seemed that all the buyers had left for vacation.

The year-end numbers reflect this sluggishness — we sold 13 percent fewer homes in Reston than in the previous year. In 2013, 1,138 residential properties sold in Reston compared to 1,005 in 2014.

Overall appreciation for 2014 was up slightly, but when you dig into the numbers by different housing types you see that some segments of the market saw significant appreciation.

For example, small townhouses (attached two bedrooms or fewer) were up 10 percent in value as were large townhouses (attached four or more bedrooms) up an average of more than 8 percent.

The smaller (three bedrooms or fewer) detached single family homes sold for an average of 8.15 percent more than last year, while the larger (four or more bedrooms) were up an average 4.13 percent.

The median sold price for a property in Reston in 2014 was $423,000, up 3.4 percent over last year.

Year	Volume in $$	Units	Avg Price (K)	Dif +/-

2002	502M	1795	280
2003	588M	1877	314	+11%
2004	725M	1955	371	+18%
2005	863M	1853	466	+25%
2006	589M	1307	451	-3.2%
2007	556M	1212	458	+1.5%
2008	368M	965	381	-20%
2009	439M	1148	383	–
2010	440M	1104	399	+4%
2011	378M	937	403	+1%
2012	483M	1061	455	+12%
2013	515M	1138	456	–
2014	465M	1005	463	1.5%

So what does the future hold for Reston real estate? Low gas prices, good job numbers and vastly improved consumer confidence should translate into strong sales. The market is in the neutral zone — not overtly favoring buyers or sellers.

Mortgage rates are low allowing qualified buyers get more house than they may have in the past. Reston continues to be a great community with a wide range of options available to home buyers.

My Magic 8 Ball says “The Outlook is Go” for 2015.