Author: Scott McCaffrey

Fairfax County’s unemployment rate held steady from September to October, part of a generally flat trend across the region as summer gave way to autumn.

With 646,247 counted in the civilian workforce and 17,181 looking for jobs, Fairfax’s unemployment rate was 2.6 percent in October, according to figures reported Nov. 30 by the Virginia Employment Commission.

November apartment-seekers in Tysons ended up paying a little less than those on the hunt a month before, but more than those who were seeking leases a year ago.

The median one-bedroom rent of $2,024 and median two-bedroom rent of $2,420 added up to a decrease of 1.1 percent month-over-month but an increase of 0.7 percent year-over-year in Tysons, according to figures reported Nov. 28 by Apartment List.

Home showings were up but new listings and ratified sales contracts were down week-over-week across the regional real-estate market, according to new figures.

Listing prices also dipped week-over-week but remained above the same period in 2022, according to data reported Nov. 13 by Bright MLS.

Washington Dulles International Airport in 2023 recorded the most passengers for any September in its 60-plus-year history, and has now surpassed pre-COVID enplanements in both the international and domestic sides of operations.

The airport tallied just over 1.09 million total passenger departures this September, up a whopping 17.4 percent from a year before and 9.2 percent higher than September 2019, the last year before the pandemic roared in.

High-school students (and others) with the desire to enter the health-care profession, but without a specific end result in mind, might want to take their cues from Vickie Beamon.

As community-relations coordinator for Northern Virginia Community College’s Medical Education Campus, Beamon is a Pied Piper of sorts, spreading the word of the campus’s offerings to audiences far and wide.

So much for any indications that a price bubble is about to pop in the Fairfax County real-estate market.

After falling below $1 million in September for the first time since last winter, the average sales price of single-family homes across the county was back in seven-digit territory in October.

Inventory remains tight across the Fairfax County homes market, helping to boost average sales prices in two of three market sectors in October.

A total of 855 properties went to closing across the county last month, according to new data reported by MarketStats by ShowingTime based on listing activity from Bright MLS and reported Nov. 10. That’s down 5.7 percent from the 907 sales recorded during a relatively quiet October 2022.

The number of homes going to contract in the Washington region for the week ending Nov. 5 was up (slightly) both from the preceding week and from a year ago.

That’s according to Bright MLS, which reported 1,102 contracts for the week, up 0.8 percent from a week before and up 0.5 percent from a year ago.

Willing sellers remain hard to find as the commonwealth’s real-estate market heads into its dormant period of the year, according to new data from the Virginia Realtors trade group.

The organization’s most recent monthly sentiment survey, conducted Oct. 25 to Nov. 2, shows both buyer and seller interest is tepid.

From the highest of high notes to the depths of their souls, competitors in the 2023 Classical Voice Vocal-Arts Competition for Emerging Artists of the Northern Virginia Business and Professional Women’s Club wowed a viewing audience as they gained performance skills and earned scholarship funds.

The biennial competition, held Nov. 4, asked competitors ages 18 to 26 to perform one selection from each of three categories: arias, art songs and either a Negro spiritual or work by a contemporary African-American composer.