Loudoun Leaders Target Lower Housing Costs as Top Priority

From Loudoun Now - February 20, 2020

“Loudoun leaders have been grappling for years with the question of what to do about the high cost of housing in Loudoun, looking at a diverse set of reports, suggestions and programs. This year and the next, those disparate ideas may coalesce into a strategy to make housing more attainable for workers and families.

Although the average income in Loudoun has grown every year and continues to be among the highest in the country, the cost of living has grown even more quickly, mirroring the national trend. A county report on housing prepared in 2017 wrote that according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, from 2000 to 2017, the area median income for the DC area grew by 25 percent. In Loudoun, however, the median cost of a home jumped by 116 percent, and rents jumped up 75 percent, far outpacing the growth in incomes.

That has led to concerns that many Loudoun families are cost-burdened or “house-poor”—making, by most measures, a large paycheck, but spending most of that just keeping a roof over their heads, and living only a few missed paychecks away from potentially losing everything.”

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