A Fairfax County community tops the list as Virginia’s most expensive place to purchase a starter home.
Great Falls is one of 242 communities nationally where the typical entry-level home costs $1 million or more, according to a new analysis from Zillow.
The number of communities qualifying for that list has risen from 226 a year ago and just 80 recorded in a similar data analysis conducted in 2020.
“A housing shortage a decade in the making ran headlong into intense demand with mortgage rates at historic lows, driving up home values at a record pace,” Zillow analysts said when releasing the data yesterday (Monday).
The analysis considers a starter-level home as one priced in the bottom third of a community’s housing market. With a median $1,233,946 value in that category, Great Falls was the only Virginia locality above $1 million.
By comparison, the typical value of a starter home nationwide is $198,649, according to the Zillow data.
Just over half the states — 26 in all — have at least one locality with million-dollar starter homes, up from nine states before Covid.
“Before 2020, this list was made up almost entirely of coastal states,” Zillow’s analysts said. “Colorado was the only interior state with a million-dollar starter home city. Now, states including Texas, Wyoming and Illinois have multiple such cities.”
California, unsurprisingly, remains the national leader, with 105 communities in the seven-figure starter-home club. Though down one from a year ago, the figure is more than triple the total of February 2020, when Covid was still in its early stages of spreading in the U.S.
New York and New Jersey are the fastest-growing states on the list, adding 15 cities combined in the past year.
New York has reached 41 — up from just 12 before the pandemic — while New Jersey has grown to 26, up from only one.
The overall New York City metropolitan area leads all metro corridors, with 63 communities where a typical starter home costs $1 million or more. The San Francisco metro follows with 37, then Los Angeles (33), San Jose (13), Miami (8) and Seattle (8).
While Virginia is home to just the one community with median starter-home values exceeding $1 million, Maryland boasts five: Gibson Island ($2,228,653), Chevy Chase View ($1,179,596), Glen Echo ($1,042,465) and Potomac ($1,013,216).
