Fairfax County saw a slight decline in home prices and a more substantial drop in overall sales in August, as buyers pulled back in the wake of increased interest rates.
According to one key regional analyst, that could be the precursor to a sluggish remainder of the year.
Fairfax County officials have started making preparations for what they anticipate will be another challenging budget season next spring.
“The low-hanging fruit is gone,” Philip Hagen, director of the county’s Department of Management and Budget, told the Board of Supervisors at its Budget Policy Committee meeting on Sept. 1.
Fairfax County in July recorded its largest number of residents employed since September 2025, but jobless totals remained higher than at the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term.
With 616,156 county residents employed in the civilian workforce and 21,819 looking for jobs, Fairfax’s July 2026 jobless rate was 3.4%, according to figures reported Sept. 2 by the Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement.
Fairfax County has seen a drop in countywide employment since the start of the second Trump administration.
A total of 622,800 jobs were reported across Fairfax in the first quarter of 2026, according to figures reported Aug. 28 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s down 2.1% from the first quarter of 2025.
Median apartment rents across Fairfax County in August were down 1% from a year before, but remained well above pre-Covid levels.
Median rents for the month stood at $2,073 for one-bedroom units, $2,401 for two bedrooms and $2,419 overall, according to figures reported Aug. 28 by Apartment List.
United Airlines has announced two new international destinations to be served from Dulles International Airport next year.
Daily service to Toulouse, France, is slated to begin on April 26, 2027 before three-days-per-week service to Milan, Italy commences on May 28.
Home sales edged up slightly across Fairfax County, while average prices also were modestly higher year over year in July, according to new data.
A total of 1,148 properties went to closing last month, up 0.4% from the 1,144 transactions in July 2025, according to figures reported Aug. 11 by Bright MLS, the region’s multiple-listing service, based on figures from MarketStats by ShowingTime.
Home sale prices across the D.C. region grew at about half the national rate in the second quarter of 2026, but local home values remained well above the national average.
The D.C. metro area recorded a 0.9% increase in year-over-year median sales price in the April to June period, according to figures reported by the National Association of Realtors.
The median apartment rent across Fairfax County was down 1.3% year over year in July, with most major residential areas posting declines.
The county’s median apartment rent for all sized units was $2,430, down from $2,463 in July 2025, according to figures reported July 29 by Apartment List.
Fairfax County recorded a 10% year-over-year increase in the number of residents counted as unemployed in June, according to new state data.
With 611,867 residents in the civilian workforce and 22,888 looking for jobs, the county’s non seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for June was 3.6%.
