A cooling housing market will aid Fairfax County in its mission to salvage affordable living space, Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald Connolly said Tuesday.
The recent building craze drove up home prices and has pushed many low- and middle-income families out of Fairfax County, prompting local officials to mount a campaign to acquire units and hold them at affordable rents. So far, the county has purchased about 1,200 such dwellings, Connolly said during an interview on Fox 5 Morning News.
He expects the housing downturn to aid their efforts.
“Prices are going to come down. It’s going to make housing more accessible and affordable for more people,” Connolly said. “And it’s going to give us the opportunity to get our hands on some more affordable housing stock.”
In October, the average Northern Virginia home sale price dropped 4.7 percent from October 2005, according to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors. The average sale price is about $524,000, however, which puts the region well above the national average.
Fairfax County has allocated $22 million this fiscal year to the preservation initiative, a large part of which has already been devoted to specific projects. The previous year, the county spent about $17.9 million on the initiative.
