161632 Resource 160154 161269 161269 1173700757253 1174172125480 Controlled Northern Virginia Job Growth

The Drive Behind the Real Estate Market

For several years now, I’ve been a member of the Mortgage Finance Forum at the <a href="http://www.nvar.com/">Northern Virginia Association of Realtors (NVAR)</a>.  Each year we plan and host the Annual Economic Summit at <place /><placename /><a href="http://www.gmu.edu/">George</placename /> <placename />Mason</placename /> <placename />University</a></placename /></place /> attended by over 500 Northern Virginia Realtors.  Dr. Stephen Fuller, Director of the <place /><placename /><a href="http://www.cra-gmu.org/">GMU</placename /> <placetype />Center</placetype /></place /> for Regional Analysis</a> has presented the keynote address for the last several years.  Dr. Fuller presents the macroeconomic view of the metro-Washington D.C. area and specifically the <place />Northern Virginia</place /> economy and how it affects the real estate market. The central theme year after year is the region’s phenomenal job growth.  Job growth is truly the drive behind the D.C. metro real estate market.  NVAR Realtor Update Magazine reports in the March 2007 issue that “on an annual basis the <state /><place />Washington</place /></state /> metropolitan region added 71,800 jobs in 2006,” and that “as of December 2006 the region’s unemployment rate was 2.9% -- lowest in the country…”  As I tell my clients, not only are the jobs and the job growth here, but <place />Northern Virginia</place /> and D.C. also have the highest paying jobs.  Most of my clients already realize this fact because this is the reason they have moved her.  This is reflected in the fact that the region’s economy has been creating more jobs in the high-paying category of Professional and Business Services than any other part of the country by a wide margin.<img hspace="0" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/132/418758222_131a25c102.jpg?v=0" align="baseline" border="0" />According to John McClain, Senior Fellow at GMU Center for Regional Analysis, “Northern Virginia has been the ‘gorilla’ in the metropolitan area’s strength…[having] added 136,000 jobs in Professional and Business Services sector,” over the past 10 years.  He reports that the outlook for the region’s economy in 2007 is that growth will continue to be strong. Friends, a strong growing economy and strong job growth fuels a strong growing housing market.  This is the outlook for the future as we move towards the busy spring and summer real estate market. 10 application/xml false center for regional analysis d.c. economy d.c. metro real estate market d.c. realtor dr. stephen fuller george mason university john mcclain metro-D.C. mortgage finance northern virginia northern virginia economy northern virginia job growth northern virginia jobs northern virginia realtor nvar nvar economic summit realtor update magazine virginia unemployment rate Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; IEMB3; IEMB3) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 bblock false true false false true 205801 false false true false false false true 160154 blog blogsite/BrianBlock/web