Booming Prince William
The county is thriving under the influx of residents and retailers
By Caroline Hailey
Photograph by Seth Freeman
In contrast to the many counties in dire straits with plummeting home sales, high foreclosure rates and vacant commercial buildings, Prince William County has been a breakthrough community as of late. The Northern Virginia locale has broken through the economic downturn not only with quick turnaround in housing, but also with wooing one major retailers.
“Businesses look at quality of life when deciding where to expand,” says Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. “Quality of life is extremely high here these days.”
Home to a strong school system and a crime rate that’s at a 15-year low, Prince William County’s population has grown more than any other Virginia county in the last decade.
During an explosion of county housing developments in the early 2000s, as many as 5,000 new homes were built each year, Stewart says. While the 2007 foreclosure crisis forced many residents to walk away from upside-down mortgages, the county’s population didn’t suffer for long.
“Empty houses don’t benefit anyone,” says Wes Stearns, president of the Realtor Association of Prince William. “All the sudden people could get houses for prices we hadn’t seen since 2000 or 2003.”
Now that Prince William’s population is nearing 400,000, retailers are taking notice of the county, recently named America’s 14th richest by Forbes magazine.
Last year, Potomac Mills renovated to add high-end shops, while the Hylton Performing Arts Center and Stonebridge at PTC, a mixed-use center, opened this year. Food-chain monolith Wegmans has opened two new locations in the county in the past two years.
With such growth, finding a house in the county is becoming a problem.
There are less than 1,000 homes on the market now, down from 8,000 just two years ago, Stearns says.
“We’re starting to actually see a house shortage now,” Stearns says. “And with the county’s demand continuing to increase, it can only get tighter.”
Average Median Sales Price for homes in Northern Virginia (April 2010):
2007 – $435,000
2008 – 354,900 (18.4% decrease from ‘07)
2009 – 295,000 (16.9% decrease from ‘08)
2010 – 339,000 (14.9 increase from ‘09)
Source: MRIS