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The next shoe to drop!

by Jim Stakem 9/18/2009

It is all too obvious that Loudoun County, as well as the rest of Northern Virginia, has a rapidly deteriorating commercial Real Estate Market. As you drive around there are an astonishing number of “see through-ems”, buildings you can look in one window and out the other side! We also have a growing number of vacancies in our retail centers. Many of the loans on these under and non producing buildings are set to refinance in the near future and they no longer have enough equity to acquire the financing. Loudoun County has one of the highest commercial vacancy rates in the Washington area, however as new construction slows there is good reason to believe that our future growth will absorb most of the vacancy in the next few years.

There is no doubt that falling commercial and land values will put much greater pressure on the county budget and we will have to greatly reduce the operating budget or see unacceptably large tax increases. This should be the year that the residential Real Estate news takes a back seat to other problems.