Fairfax County’s economic situation shows some improvement
Here’s the positive news:
Home prices are up. The average sales price of all homes that sold in January 2017 in Fairfax County was $545,772, an increase of 8.1 percent over the average price of homes sold in January 2016.
Home sales are up. In January, 794 homes were sold, compared to 743 in January of last year, an increase of 6.9 percent.
Job growth is up. The December unemployment rate decreased by two-tenths of a percentage point to 3 percent. The number of unemployed residents declined over the month from 19,943 to 18,754.
Now for the disappointing news:
Tax receipts are down. Sales tax receipts distributed to the county last month for retail purchases made in December totaled $18.4 million, a decrease of 0.2 percent from February 2016.
Home listings are down. In January, there were 1,977 active listings, a decrease of 17.4 percent from January 2016.
I see this particular news as overwhelmingly positive; home prices and sales are up pretty sizeable amounts. Tax receipts are down but only very slightly. There are fewer homes on the market, but the ones that are on are selling well. I wonder if that means fewer people are leaving…hmmm…..
Ellie, help a brother out, which file(s) were you looking at via that link?
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/economic/indicat/2017/2017_02.pdf