Author: Scott McCaffrey

Add up the sales and prices, and Fairfax County’s home-sales volume for January was just shy of $400 million and down ever so slightly from a year before.

A total of 522 properties went to closing for the month, according to figures reported Feb. 12 by MarketStats by ShowingTime based on listing activity from Bright MLS.

As a strike against the Fairfax Connector bus service rolls on, the union representing workers wants to know why Fairfax County government leaders have not stepped in to try and resolve the dispute.

“Fairfax County officials have continued to remain silent and have refused to stand with workers and demand that their contractor bargain in good faith,” Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 said in a Feb. 26 statement.

The Northern Virginia real-estate market entered 2024 as it left 2023 – with an inventory crunch that, while perhaps easing, remains an impediment for the market in gaining forward momentum.

The number of active listings across the corridor in January was 981, down 18.9 percent compared to January 2023, according to figures reported by the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors. That includes properties in Arlington and Fairfax counties and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church.

George Mason University’s leadership is playing defense after community concerns over a proposed baseball/cricket stadium on the currently underutilized, 190-acre western portion of the university’s Fairfax campus seem to have caught them by surprise.

In an open letter from Mason president Gregory Washington released Feb. 14, the university acknowledged that “a very clear set of concerns” have emerged in the wake of a Jan. 29 meeting that outlined the development proposal.

Construction of a combination baseball/cricket stadium on the underdeveloped western side of George Mason University’s Fairfax County campus could prove a win-win for the university and the professional sports team that aims to occupy it.

Or a win-win-win, if amenities for the surrounding community are factored in.

The Fairfax County government’s AAA ratings for general-obligation debt have been affirmed by the nation’s three major bond-rating houses, which looked at the government’s financial condition ahead of a Jan. 24 sale of debt.

The county government successfully sold $350 million in bonds, designed to fund the following areas:

The Washington region’s snow drought has come to an end, but at Northern Virginia’s two commercial airports, the arrival of several rapid-fire winter-weather events is causing some learning-by-doing for staff who haven’t handled snow before.

“Good thing we practice,” Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority CEO Jack Potter said at the authority’s Jan. 17 board meeting. He noted that about 100 members of the “snow teams” at Ronald Reagan Washington National and Washington Dulles International airports have come to their posts since the last active winter season of three years ago.

The Washington region’s real-estate market is beginning to show a little spring fever, with new listings, showings and contracts all up for the week ending Feb. 4 compared to the preceding week.

In terms of a year-over-year comparison, however, there is still some ground to make up.

It didn’t get very far in 2023, but a local member of the General Assembly has brought back a proposal requiring all school systems across the commonwealth to have a student representative.

The bill, HB 958, is patroned by Del. Alfonso Lopez (D-Arlington), and is similar in scope to one he introduced in last year’s session.

Town governments across Virginia would receive a new source of cash flow if legislation cutting them in on plastic-bag revenue makes it through the General Assembly.

Freshman Del. Marty Martinez (D-Leesburg) has patroned legislation giving towns located within counties that have adopted a tax on single-use plastic bags a share of the proceeds.