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Market Update, Virginia
Median price $423,683, average apartment rent $2,019, and mortgage rates at 7.40 percent. Here is what the latest Virginia housing market data means if you own a rental.
The Virginia housing market has turned. Through most of 2026 sales activity ran ahead of last year while prices climbed; since August both the statewide and the regional reports show sales falling while prices keep rising. Virginia REALTORS recorded the first year over year drop in closed sales since November 2025, and in September every one of Virginia's three big regional markets added inventory without adding buyers. Mortgage rates are the reason, and at 7.40 percent they have changed the arithmetic for anyone who owns a rental here.
The short version: Virginia home prices are still rising but slowly, up 0.9 percent year over year to a $423,683 median in September per Redfin, while homes take 37 days to sell. Closed sales fell 4.6 percent in August and fell again across Northern Virginia and Central Virginia in September. Active listings are up 8.7 percent statewide. Average apartment rent is $2,019, up 1.7 percent on the year, which is slower than the pace of home price growth in the expensive parts of the state and faster than it in the cheap parts.
Virginia REALTORS and Redfin both publish statewide figures, on different methods and different months. Virginia REALTORS measures MLS activity and its latest published month is August 2026; Redfin's statewide series is current through September 2026. Both appear below, each labeled with its own source and month. Do not read across the two rows as if they were the same measurement.
| Metric | Latest reading | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Median sales price (Virginia REALTORS) | $449,000 (August 2026) | Up 4.4 percent, or $19,000, year over year |
| Closed sales (Virginia REALTORS) | 8,985 (August 2026) | Down 4.6 percent, 438 fewer sales; year to date through August up 3.6 percent |
| Active listings (Virginia REALTORS) | 28,560 at end of August 2026 | Up 13.8 percent, an influx of 3,464 listings |
| Median days on market (Virginia REALTORS) | 19 days (August 2026) | Up from 17 days in August 2025 |
| Homes for sale (Redfin, separate source) | 36,295 (September 2026) | Up 8.7 percent year over year |
| Newly listed homes (Redfin) | 11,106 (September 2026) | Up 4.2 percent year over year |
| Months of supply (Redfin) | 3 months (September 2026) | Unchanged year over year |
| Homes sold above list price (Redfin) | 29.0 percent (September 2026) | Down 1.3 points year over year |
| Homes with price drops (Redfin) | 17.6 percent (September 2026) | Up 1.9 points year over year |
| Sale to list price ratio (Redfin) | 99.1 percent (September 2026) | Down 0.13 point year over year |
| 30-year fixed mortgage rate (Freddie Mac) | 7.40 percent (Oct 15, 2026) | Unchanged from the prior week, 6.27 percent a year ago |
Redfin put the median home price in Virginia at $423,683 in September 2026, up 0.9 percent year over year, with 8,645 homes sold, down 3.0 percent, and a median 37 days on market. Virginia REALTORS, measuring MLS activity for August 2026, reported a statewide median sales price of $449,000, up 4.4 percent or $19,000 on August 2025. The gap between the two is methodology, not disagreement: Virginia REALTORS counts MLS transactions for a single month, Redfin uses its own calculations across all home types and a later month.
Both series say the same thing about direction. Prices are still going up and sales are going down. Virginia REALTORS chief economist Ryan Price attributed the August pullback directly to rates: average mortgage rates moved above where they were a year earlier just as the August market began, and the association said the gap had since widened to roughly three quarters of a percentage point above September 2025. Its stated expectation is a slower fall market than last year.
Competitiveness has started to soften with it. Redfin recorded 29.0 percent of Virginia homes selling above list price in September 2026, down 1.3 points year over year, with a sale to list ratio of 99.1 percent and 17.6 percent of listings taking a price cut, up 1.9 points. Inventory is up 8.7 percent to 36,295 homes, but months of supply is still 3, well inside the five to six months that normally marks a balanced market. Virginia is loosening, not turning over.
Redfin city stat cards, all four on the same rolling three months ending September 2026. Arrow shows change year over year. Bars are to scale from a zero baseline.
Owning: principal and interest on the $423,683 Redfin September 2026 Virginia median, 20 percent down, 30-year term, at 7.40 percent and at the 6.27 percent of a year earlier. Property taxes, insurance, HOA dues and maintenance are excluded. Rent: RentCafe Virginia average, Oct 1, 2026, apartments in buildings of 50 or more units. The two are different property types and are shown as a cost comparison, not a like for like swap.
Every row below is a Redfin median from that city's own stat card. Five of the seven share the same rolling three months ending September 2026. Manassas and Warrenton refresh later, so their reference months are shown and they should not be read as part of the September comparison.
| City | Median sale price | Change year over year | Homes sold | Days on market | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arlington | $799,619 | Up 10.1 percent | 609 | 46 days | Sep 2026 |
| Alexandria | $674,679 | Down 1.1 percent | 499 | 44 days | Sep 2026 |
| Warrenton | $514,742 | Not published, see note | 69 | 31 days | Jul 2026 |
| Manassas | $511,661 | Up 2.3 percent | 151 | 39 days | Aug 2026 |
| Virginia Beach | $429,795 | Up 6.8 percent | 1,698 | 28 days | Sep 2026 |
| Richmond | $401,199 | Up 0.3 percent | 719 | 17 days | Sep 2026 |
| Norfolk | $331,842 | Up 0.7 percent | 876 | 31 days | Sep 2026 |
Note on Warrenton: Redfin's Warrenton stat card rests on 69 recorded sales in the three months ending July 2026, against 42 a year earlier. On a sample that small a median can move double digits on property mix alone, so we publish the median and the sales count and withhold the percentage change rather than present noise as a trend. Manassas rests on 151 sales for the three months ending August 2026, a usable sample but a different month from the September rows.
Two rows are worth comment. Arlington and Alexandria are neighbours in the same regional market and they moved in opposite directions: Arlington up 10.1 percent on 609 sales, Alexandria down 1.1 percent on 499 sales with days on market stretching from 36 to 44. Whatever is happening in Northern Virginia is not happening uniformly, and an owner who prices off the regional average will be wrong in one of those two places.
Anyone searching for a Richmond VA median home price will find the most striking number in the state, and it is not the price. Richmond's median was $401,199 for the three months ending September 2026, up only 0.3 percent, but the median home sold in 17 days, one day faster than a year earlier, on 719 sales, up 7.6 percent. Richmond also had the highest share of homes clearing list price of any market here at 40.4 percent, up 5.4 points, with a sale to list ratio of 100.3 percent. Flat prices, 17 day sales and rising volume is the signature of a market constrained by supply rather than demand.
RentCafe put the average rent in Virginia at $2,019 as of October 1, 2026, up 1.71 percent from $1,985 a year earlier, across apartment buildings with 50 or more units. The average unit is 925 square feet. One bedrooms average $1,884 and two bedrooms $2,056.
A note on sources, because it matters this month. The page previously quoted Zillow's statewide Virginia rent. Zillow's statewide rental trends page and its Virginia city pages are currently serving caches dated August and October 2025, a full year old, so every Zillow rent figure has been removed rather than presented as current. RentCafe, drawing on Yardi Matrix, published a fresh reading on October 1, 2026 and is used instead. The trade off is scope: RentCafe covers apartments in larger buildings only, so it does not capture single family rentals, which is most of what Intempus manages in Virginia.
So the honest answer to how much rent is going up in Virginia is: a little under two percent. On a $2,019 rent, 1.71 percent is about $34 a month over a year. Virginia REALTORS reached a similar conclusion from the supply side in its Q2 2026 Virginia Multifamily Market Report, published August 26, 2026: multifamily inventory grew, the vacancy rate rose, deliveries of newly completed units increased, and four of the nine metro markets it tracks recorded a decline in effective rent against the prior year, with Charlottesville down the most. Owners planning renewal increases should calibrate against that, not against 2021 and 2022.
Regional variation matters more than the state trend, and it runs the opposite way to sale prices. The cheap end of the state is where rent is rising fastest: Norfolk up 6.86 percent, Virginia Beach up 5.72 percent and Richmond up 4.36 percent. The expensive Northern Virginia end is flat to falling, with Alexandria down 0.37 percent and Arlington up 0.57 percent.
| Market | Average rent | Change year over year | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arlington | $2,727 | Up 0.57 percent | RentCafe | Sept 30, 2026 |
| Alexandria | $2,188 | Down 0.37 percent | RentCafe | Sept 30, 2026 |
| Virginia Beach | $1,833 | Up 5.72 percent | RentCafe | Sept 30, 2026 |
| Norfolk | $1,656 | Up 6.86 percent | RentCafe | Sept 30, 2026 |
| Richmond | $1,649 | Up 4.36 percent | RentCafe | Sept 30, 2026 |
| Roanoke | $1,371 | Up 0.89 percent | RentCafe | Sept 30, 2026 |
All rows are RentCafe averages for apartments in buildings of 50 or more units, drawn from Yardi Matrix, so they are comparable with each other and with the statewide $2,019. They are not comparable with a single family rental, which typically carries more space and a higher rent than the apartment average for the same city. Warrenton is not listed because RentCafe reports no figure for it: the town has no apartment stock meeting the 50 unit threshold, so there is nothing to publish. For a Warrenton or Fauquier County single family rent, ask our local team for comparables rather than relying on a statewide average.
Intempus's Virginia office is in Warrenton, so Northern Virginia is the region we know best. It is also the region where September's data is hardest on the easy story.
The Northern Virginia Association of REALTORS reported 1,250 homes sold in September 2026, down 7.5 percent from September 2025. New pending sales fell further and faster, down 16.2 percent to 1,204, and pending sales are the forward indicator. Total sales volume fell 8.7 percent to $1.1 billion. Over the same month the median sold price still rose 4.2 percent to $744,950. NVAR reports for Fairfax and Arlington counties, the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church, and the towns of Vienna, Herndon and Clifton.
Inventory told the clearest story of all. Active listings rose 30.7 percent year over year to 3,477 homes, and the growth was lopsided: condo and townhome inventory up 49.7 percent, detached home inventory up only 5.7 percent. Months of supply reached 2.5, up 29.5 percent on the year but still half the five to six months associated with a balanced market. Homes spent an average of 28 days on the market, exactly the same as September 2025.
NVAR did not soften the reading. Its chief executive Ryan McLaughlin said the decline in closed sales alongside continued price growth shows that additional inventory does not automatically make homeownership more attainable, and called the median price a significant financial hurdle for many households seeking to buy in the region. Neither NVAR's September release nor Virginia REALTORS' August report attributes the slowdown to federal employment; both name mortgage rates and affordability as the cause. Northern Virginia is the part of the state most exposed to federal payrolls, and we have not found a current, named, dated federal employment figure for the region to publish here, so we are not asserting one.
For owners, the practical consequence is specific. A condo or townhome in Northern Virginia is now competing against roughly half again as many listings as a year ago, while a detached house is competing against barely more. If you hold a condo or townhome here, assume longer vacancy and less pricing power than the headline regional numbers suggest.
Manassas has decoupled from the inner suburbs. Redfin recorded a $511,661 median for the three months ending August 2026, up 2.3 percent year over year, with 39 days on market and 151 sales, up 23.6 percent. On Manassas housing market predictions, Intempus does not publish price forecasts. What the data shows is a market where transaction volume is rising faster than price, which historically indicates buyers finding value at a price point rather than bidding it up.
Warrenton, where our office sits, recorded a $514,742 median for the three months ending July 2026 on 69 sales, against 42 sales a year earlier. That is the whole sample. We have deliberately not published a percentage change on it, because a 69 sale median moves on which houses happened to close, not on what Fauquier County is worth. The rising transaction count is the only part of that reading we would treat as signal.
Three regional reporting bodies published September 2026 figures, and together they map the state.
Tightest: Northern Virginia at 2.5 months of supply. Even after a 30.7 percent jump in listings, the region has the least inventory relative to sales pace of any major Virginia market, which is why its median price rose 4.2 percent while its sales fell 7.5 percent.
Central Virginia, 2.6 months for single family homes. The Central Virginia Regional MLS, which covers Richmond, Petersburg, Hopewell, Colonial Heights and thirteen surrounding counties, reported 1,217 single family closings in September, down 8.0 percent, and 230 condo and townhome sales, down 11.5 percent. The single family median rose 3.8 percent to $415,000 and condos and townhomes rose 2.2 percent to $368,215. Single family homes for sale were up 8.9 percent to 3,485. Condo and townhome supply is the loosest segment in the state at 3.3 months.
Loosest among the big three: Hampton Roads at 2.97 months. The Real Estate Information Network counted 6,357 active residential listings in September, up 16.17 percent and the most homes on the market in the region since April 2020. Settled sales edged up 1.18 percent to 2,142 while pending sales fell 6.95 percent to 2,009. The median sales price rose 2.74 percent to $375,000, and the median time on market lengthened to 30 days from 27. Within the region, Virginia Beach posted the largest price gain of the seven major cities at 8.4 percent, followed by Chesapeake at 2.5 percent, Norfolk at 1.85 percent, Portsmouth and Hampton at 1.7 percent each and Newport News at 1.63 percent. Suffolk was the only one of the seven to fall, down 3.26 percent.
The pattern across all three regions is identical: more listings, fewer buyers, prices still up. That is a market absorbing a rate shock rather than repricing for one.
Freddie Mac reported the 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 7.40 percent on October 15, 2026, unchanged from the previous week and well above the 6.27 percent of a year earlier. The rate was 7.28 percent on October 1 and 7.03 percent on September 24, so the move happened quickly. Virginia REALTORS flagged the same 7.4 percent reading in its October 9 analysis.
That rate changes the rent versus buy verdict in Virginia, and it changes it against buying. Principal and interest on the $423,683 statewide median, with twenty percent down at 7.40 percent over thirty years, comes to $2,347 a month. The statewide average apartment rent is $2,019. Owning therefore costs about $328 a month more than renting before property taxes, insurance and maintenance, and before the $84,737 deposit. At last year's 6.27 percent the same loan would have cost $2,091 a month, close enough to rent that a saver could talk themselves into it. The rate move added $256 a month and closed that door.
Note that these two numbers measure different things. The $2,019 is an apartment average and the $423,683 is a median across all home types, so a household comparing a two bedroom apartment with a three bedroom house would see a wider gap still. The direction of the comparison is not in doubt either way.
The consequence for owners is that the affordability wall is back. Your best tenants had a plausible path to buying a year ago and mostly do not now, which supports retention. It also explains why sales are falling across every Virginia region while prices hold: the buyers who have left the market did not become sellers, they became renters or they stayed put.
Get a free, no obligation rental analysis from our Warrenton team, priced against current comps in your neighborhood.
Get Your Free Rental Analysis →Sales are falling while prices keep rising. The Northern Virginia Association of REALTORS reported 1,250 homes sold in September 2026, down 7.5 percent year over year, with new pending sales down 16.2 percent to 1,204 and total sales volume down 8.7 percent to $1.1 billion. Over the same month the median sold price rose 4.2 percent to $744,950 and homes spent an average of 28 days on market, unchanged from a year earlier. Active listings rose 30.7 percent to 3,477, but the increase was lopsided: condo and townhome inventory up 49.7 percent against detached inventory up 5.7 percent. Months of supply reached 2.5, still well below the five to six months of a balanced market.
A little under two percent. RentCafe measured the Virginia average apartment rent at $2,019 as of October 1, 2026, up 1.71 percent from $1,985 a year earlier, across buildings of 50 or more units. On a $2,019 rent that is about $34 a month over a year. Growth varies sharply by market: Norfolk is up 6.86 percent and Virginia Beach up 5.72 percent, while Alexandria is down 0.37 percent and Arlington up 0.57 percent. Virginia REALTORS found four of the nine metro markets in its Q2 2026 Virginia Multifamily Market Report recording a decline in effective rent against the prior year.
Redfin put the Virginia median home price at $423,683 in September 2026, up 0.9 percent year over year, on 8,645 sales and a median 37 days on market. Virginia REALTORS, using MLS data for August 2026, reported a statewide median sales price of $449,000, up 4.4 percent or $19,000 from August 2025. The two use different methods and different months, so they are not directly comparable, but both show prices still rising while sales fall.
Redfin recorded a Richmond median sale price of $401,199 for the three months ending September 2026, up 0.3 percent year over year. The more striking figure is speed: the median Richmond home sold in 17 days, one day faster than a year earlier, on 719 sales, up 7.6 percent. Richmond also had the highest share of homes selling above list price of any Virginia market we track, at 40.4 percent, up 5.4 points, with a sale to list ratio of 100.3 percent. That is roughly twice as fast as the statewide median of 37 days.
Renting, by about $328 a month. Principal and interest on the $423,683 Redfin September 2026 statewide median, with 20 percent down at the Freddie Mac rate of 7.40 percent over 30 years, comes to $2,347 a month, against a statewide average apartment rent of $2,019. That excludes property taxes, insurance and maintenance, and it excludes the roughly $84,737 deposit. At the 6.27 percent rate of a year earlier the same loan would have cost $2,091 a month. The rate move added $256 a month to the cost of owning.
Intempus does not publish price predictions, so here is only what the sources state. Virginia REALTORS said in September that mortgage rates are now roughly three quarters of a percentage point above where they were a year earlier and that these trends point to a likely slower fall market than last year. The association added that price growth could start to soften as the year closes as more supply arrives and sales moderate, though it expects this to be specific to price point and to vary across regional markets. Pending sales, which lead closings, fell 16.2 percent in Northern Virginia and 6.95 percent in Hampton Roads in September 2026.
Sources: Virginia REALTORS, Key Takeaways: August 2026 Virginia Home Sales Report (published September 23, 2026); Virginia REALTORS, Q2 2026 Virginia Multifamily Market Report, August 26, 2026; Virginia REALTORS, Higher Mortgage Rates Are Challenging Buyers, October 9, 2026; Virginia Business, Virginia home prices climb despite rising inventory, October 19, 2026, reporting September 2026 figures from the Northern Virginia Association of REALTORS, the Real Estate Information Network and the Central Virginia Regional MLS; Virginia Business, Virginia housing sales dip in August, September 24, 2026; Redfin Virginia housing market data, September 2026; Redfin Arlington, Alexandria, Virginia Beach, Richmond, Norfolk, Manassas and Warrenton stat cards, September, August and July 2026 as labeled on each row; RentCafe Virginia rental market trends, October 1, 2026 and the Arlington, Alexandria, Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Richmond and Roanoke city pages, September 30, 2026, covering apartment buildings of 50 or more units (RentCafe Market Analysis, Yardi Matrix and U.S. Census Bureau data); Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, October 15, 2026. Zillow Rental Manager was not used this month: its Virginia statewide and city rental pages were serving caches dated 2025 at the time of writing. Figures are the most recent published readings at the time of writing and are provided for general information, not investment advice.
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