Loudoun has grown faster than nearly every other county in the nation while maintaining the highest median income in the United States for the last two years and an unemployment rate of less than 5 percent. From the outside looking in, the future seems promising.
Plans for a Metro station and more town centers will continue to transform the rural paradise. Though hit hard during the economic downturn the region’s economy has stabilized and the real estate market once again is showing signs of recovery. But growing pains persist.
“Loudoun has the fastest growing population in the state,” said Jill Landsman, communications director for the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors. “From 2000 to 2008, the population has grown by 120,000. No other county in the state has grown so quickly.”
Commercial development beyond the already established defense and high-tech industries hasn’t grown as fast, however, and this had led to a low corporate tax revenue base. Even so, the county board of supervisors has big ambitions, preferring to build more costly public schools for the 29,000 new students instead of private or charter schools and proposing a large county government center.
As a result the tax burden placed on homeowners is one of the highest in Northern Virginia.
“We need $100 million in roads and bridges,” said Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio. “You can’t finance infrastructure from a residential tax base. If we need a firehouse, we can’t put a hose in the lake.”
Delgaudio believes more high-density commercial development is needed. But tension exists between rural western Loudoun “no-growthers,” as he calls them, and eastern Loudoun residents who shoulder most of the financial burden. That tension is reflected in what some describe as an anti-business attitude including such measures as a one-sign ordinance that allows businesses, including those with multiple entrances, only a single sign.
As a result, some say, Loudoun is losing businesses to Fairfax and Montgomery counties.
“Business leaders have been smacked around and they are going elsewhere,” Delgaudio said. “Our dreams are only as big as our debt ratio.”
From a residential perspective, Loudoun maintains its status as an attractive place to live because of its town centers and stand-alone communities such as Ashburn, Brambleton, Broadlands, and Martin’s Chase.
Planned developments include One Loudoun and the proposed Kincora project, a $3 billion development with mixed-use housing, a heron preserve and a minor league baseball team.
“Reston started it all,” said Robyn Burdett of RE/MAX. “People like living where everything is in one place. There’s more Harris Teeters out here than anyplace I’ve ever seen.”
Foreclosures have tapered off and bank approvals for short sales are lengthy, according to Burdett. Home prices are holding steady, in fact a lack of homes for sale is now an issue and new construction has resumed with more than 400 homes being built this year.
“New homes are selling at a higher pace than since the market turned south,” said agent Danilo Bogdanovic of Market Advantage. “Anyone trying to negotiate the price of a new construction home with a builder in Loudoun County will see that builders aren’t budging.”
Builders are coming back to finish projects and the housing market has picked up.
“There’s a lot of urgency in the Loudoun real estate market right now,” Burdett said. “We’re seeing move-up buyers again because of the existing homeowner tax credit. It’s a different kind of bubble. Houses are flying off the shelves.”
