Author: Scott McCaffrey

Fairfax County’s jobless rate ticked up from July to August but remained below the rate recorded in the locality a year ago.

That makes the county part of a trend across Northern Virginia jurisdictions, according to data reported Sept. 27 by the Virginia Employment Commission.

Apartment-rental costs in Tysons at the end of September were roughly on par with a month and a year before, according to new data.

The median one-bedroom rent was $2,051 monthly with the median two-bedroom rent standing at $2,452, according to figures reported Sept. 28 by Apartment List.

The local homes market appears to be settling into a typical autumnal pattern, making the transition from summertime to winter.

And as a result, activity for the week ending Oct. 1 was down from both a week before and a year ago.

As it does every autumn, the Virginia Department of Forestry is encouraging Virginians to help collect acorns and nuts to be planted at its Augusta Nursery.

Through statewide collection efforts, state-government nurseries plant more trees, of more species, from varied genetics. The resulting seedlings are then sold to Virginia landowners, typically to reforest open lands.

A housing-affordability crunch in the Washington region is leading more prospective buyers away from the single-family sector and into condominiums and townhouses.

But that, in turn, is pushing up costs and adding to the affordability challenge in those sectors, too.

The combined overall passenger count at the local region’s two main airports stood slightly above pre-pandemic levels, according to new data, but one of the two facilities needs one last push to get past the COVID-induced slowdown.

But by the time 2023 comes to an end, it’s possible that the current laggard may come out on top.

Homes going to contract across the region for the week ending Sept. 17 saw a major bump up from a week before, but other market-performance data pointed to ongoing soft conditions.

The total number of purchase contracts reported regionally – 1,268 – was up 21.7 percent from a week before if still down 22.6 percent from a year ago, according to figures reported by Bright MLS.

There’s still time for an amicable conclusion, but members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Sept. 12 took a procedural step to keep the long-planned replacement of a major sewer pipe in Merrifield on track.

On an 8-2 vote, supervisors gave county staff the power to begin condemnation proceedings that would allow the county government to use a portion of a commercial property at 8315 Lee Highway for installation of a new 563-linear-foot sewer.

There are some signs that the lack of home inventory across the region may ease this fall, but portions of McLean, Vienna, Oakton and Great Falls each saw such limited supply in August that many prospective home-buyers didn’t even bother jumping in.

That’s the conclusion of the latest Bright MLS T3 Home-Demand Index, released Sept. 12, which pointed to limited inventory in McLean’s 22101 and 22102 ZIP codes along wiith Oakton’s 22124, Vienna’s 22182 and Great Falls’s 22066.

•••••••

Overall private-sector employment in the Northern Virginia portion of the Washington metropolitan area stands about 3.4 percent above in pre-pandemic times, according to new data from the Virginia Employment Commission.