BY DIMA WILLIAMS
“It has become the It city,” says Kiberly Casey, associate broker and one half of the Kimberly Team.
Home prices reflect that desirability. The median home value is nearly $700,000, having jumped by 2.2 percent over the past year. Real estate listing platform Zillow estimates it will shoot up another 2.4 percent over the next 12 months, shaping a median list price per square foot twice as high as that for the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro.
Average rent in Arlington clocks a little over $2,000, which almost mirrors the rate in D.C., according to RENTCafe. Most of the new construction here is in the rental realm, said Battle, adding that it is “going to go crazy.” Investors will begin buying on the news that Amazon is moving in, ushering the first vestiges of price uptick, he said.
As more and more residents are set to flood the market over the foreseeable future, worries are starting to surface in both Arlington and Long Island City. Traffic is a major one—its magnitude could even overweigh any real estate advancements, Denham said. In Arlington, water taxis may absorb some of the brunt, Judy said. In Queens, DeCurtis said that congestion—on the streets, in schools, in parking lots and in various amenities—might prompt politicians to enact infrastructural updates.
And yet, the pains of growth, realtors in both locales agree, might well be worth the exalted profile that comes with housing one of the world’s most prolific companies.