News and notes from Reston (tm).

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Reston Reassessments Rise, But Where Are Our Wheelbarrows Full of Metro-Induced Cash? (A Restonian Investigation)

The only good news about the arrival of the Silver Line not magically causing our homes to double in value, all our hand-clapping to the contrary? Our real estate assessments didn't double, either.

In fact, the average 3.19 percent increase in 2015 real estate assessments in Reston was slightly below the county's 3.27 percent average. The biggest increases were in decidedly Metro-free Annandale, which is just... shocking. It's almost as though the availability of mass transit doesn't suddenly turn houses into bottomless equity machines!

The average home in Reston was assessed at the decidedly non-Metro premium price of $410,846, way below the county average of $620,080. But that's only part of what interested us. Our BFFs at the Connection "news-paper" did a little of what journalists might call "computer-assisted journalism" (and what we call "web logging") and included the assessment values and photos of the homes of all the Fairfax County supervisors, which range from a modest townhouse in Centreville to a giant-ish McMansion in McLean. (Anticipating the question, Cathy Hudgins' digs were somewhere in the middle of the pack, a sensible rancher valued at around the county average.) But... just look at them all on their fancy map. (Don't bother enlarging the image -- it doesn't really help enhance the aesthetics of the county's housing stock.)

Homes of the Sorta Famous 2
Wow. No wonder Fairfax County looks the way it does, the end.

5 comments:

  1. Well, my assessment rose 5.68% last year and a whooping 8% this year. Instead of being 95% of the "fair market value" the assessed value is now 104%, or the difference is about the price of a fully loaded Ford Focus that I don't drive.

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  2. My tiny Reston townhouse assessment went up 10% this year.
    I always knew I was above average. Finally I have proof.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Peasant From Less Sought After South RestonFebruary 27, 2015 at 11:05 AM

    My hovel's assessment remained the same. I guess South Reston still isn't the most sought after.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Our Assessment went up a whopping 20% near the metro. Guess South County isn't all that bad.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The wheelbarrows of cash seem to be primarily flowing from me to Fairfax County, as my assessment (on a very special episode of "Reston Heights") went up 39% in 2014. "Only" up 4.1% for 2015, though.

    ReplyDelete

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