Home boom over -but what a ride while it lasted

By Uri Arkin and Tom Donlan

Barcroft News Staff

Lake Barcroft home prices have hit an all-time high, but what's next? The best real estate boom in more than a decade seems to be coming to an end.

With house prices hitting record highs in Northern Virginia and throughout the metropolitan Washington area, Lake Barcroft homes were taking the place of dot-com stock in many an investment portfolio.

"Homes in Lake Barcroft have appreciated by approximately 50 percent over the past 10 years, with most of the appreciation coming since January of 2000," says Lilian Crain, a lake resident and an experienced real estate agent working in this area with Long & Foster.

Over the past six months, however, the housing market has slowed: More houses have come on the market in response to the rise in price. Crain tells us that a year ago there were usually three or four houses on the market in Lake Barcroft. Most weeks recently there are 10 or more. At the same time, every sale of a house means a satisfied buyer, and it takes time for more potential buyers to learn about Lake Barcroft.

Lillian Peterson, another long time real estate agent with Long and Foster, says flatly "houses have become overpriced, having reached a plateau in August of 2002." She figures that many people who were looking to move to Lake Barcroft have been priced out of the market.

"If a house hasn't sold in 30 days," Peterson notes "it can only be for one of three reasons: price, condition, or location." While the first two reasons may be factors, location is not an issue when it comes to selling Lake Barcroft. With Washington commutes getting longer every year, it is impossible to match the amenities and location that Lake Barcroft provides.

Property within Lake Barcroft should maintain its value as well or better than any neighboring community. But homeowners should not assume that the rapid price increases of 2000, 2001 and the first half of 2002 will return on anybody's schedule. After all, prices were nearly flat through several years in the early 1990s. As hard as it may be to believe or remember, county real estate tax assessments generally fell a little at that time.