Reston's Vibrant Economy, Part 18: Anyone want a 60-year ARM on a townhouse?

Reston's awesome housing stock of faux stucco, mildewing concrete and taupe-painted wood hasn't managed to escape the throes of the foreclosure crisis.

According to a Fairfax County-generated list, 156 residential properties in Reston entered foreclosure between January 2007 and February 2008. Southgate Square, Reston’s largest cluster with 178 townhomes, was among the hardest hit areas. Eleven properties in the cluster entered foreclosure during that time period, according to the county list.

Regular contestants of this site's high-low game know Southgate Square well. Other past high-low winners are represented on streets with multiple foreclosures, including Market Street (9 foreclosures), Stoneview Square (9 foreclosures), Coquina Drive (7 foreclosures), Castle Rock Square and White Cornus Lane (6 foreclosures).

FORECLOSURES HAVE hit areas of Reston that are long-established as well as some newer properties. Market Street in Reston Town Center was home to nine properties that entered foreclosure — five of them in the Savoy Condominium — between January 2007 and February 2008. The Savoy was built in 2004. Shadowood Condominium, established in 1974 as one of Virginia’s first condominiums, in South Reston was also hard hit in the same time period, with 15 foreclosures on the two streets that comprise the development — Stoneview Square, nine foreclosures, and Castle Rock Square, six foreclosures.

Meanwhile, neighboring Herndon has had nearly double the number of foreclosures.

According to a Fairfax County generated list, there have been 389 foreclosures in Herndon, both incorporated and unincorporated, between January 2007 and February 2008... n addition to nationwide economic trends, according to Town of Herndon Vice Mayor Dennis Husch, last year’s drought and decline in construction jobs along with questionable home loans from banks contributed to the foreclosures in Herndon. "It was just a perfect storm," said Husch. "When construction jobs tailed off and drought hit last summer, a lot of people couldn’t find jobs."

All of this means it's a great time to buy!