With Amazon Anticipation, Homebuyers’ Eyes Turn to Arlington

• November 8, 2018

by Nena Perry-Brown

Last weekend, speculation around where Amazon's second headquarters would land reached a fever pitch as reports came that the company was in the final discussion stage with parties in Northern Virginia. If the housing market in the Northern Virginia neighborhoods had not yet been demonstrably affected by the region's place on the HQ2 finalist list, Saturday's report may have been a tipping point.

Curbed DC editor Andrew Giambrone tweeted on Wednesday that Realtor.com was reporting a significant uptick in "page views" for homes for sale in Arlington County. Page views were 26 percent higher on Saturday compared to average Saturday page views over the preceding three months.  

The uptick continued in the following days, with page views on Sunday 32.8 percent higher than the average Sunday over the past three months. In total, over the four days spanning November 3rd through November 6th, listings in Arlington County received 40.5 percent more page views than they had over any Saturday-Tuesday span over the past three months.

Real estate agents are also taking note of the Amazon allure in Northern Virginia. This Arlington listing now touts its proximity to "Crystal City likely location of Amazon HQ2" in its listing description. Realtor.com also notes that at least one broker used the possible arrival of HQ2 as justification for raising the price for a Crystal City condo by $20,000 despite the unit having sat on the market for two months.

It remains to be seen whether Northern Virginia will be selected for the second headquarters, and whether the increase in page views will be accompanied by an influx of HQ2 employees or were simply the result of increased public curiosity.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/amazon-hq2-anticipation-attracts-more-eyes-to-arlington-county-listings/14671