Open House has looked at the five Zip codes where prices are climbing the fastest in DC and Montgomery County. Here’s the same data for Fairfax, where Lorton’s prices rose more than 105 percent from 2003 to 2006. The Washingtonian profiled the area in our our April 2006 Great Places to Live issue:
With a new name and new look, the former site of the Lorton Correction Complex has become a place people are now happy to call home. Made up of neighborhoods like Lorton Station and Laurel Hill, the area has 1,200 acres of parks including the new Laurel Hill Golf Club and a planned equestrian center. While much of the area is still in the development phase, buyers are snapping up properties.
Susan Fremit, president of the Lorton Station Community Association, moved there in 2002. “I think we have the best of everything in the county,” she says.
Lorton Town Center, most of which will be in place by summer, is within walking distance of many homes and is to include restaurants, a grocery store, condos, a bank, and a dry cleaner.
For commuters, there’s a Virginia Railway Express station and the Franconia-Springfield Metro, both a short drive away. Military families are close to Fort Belvoir. A new secondary school, South County, just opened, and two schools are planned. An Inova hospital facility is expected to open in two to three years.
The area is becoming one of the county’s most diverse. Walking to the Town Center, Fremit runs into people of Middle Eastern, African, Mexican, Vietnamese, and Spanish descent.
Homes in Lorton range from $300,000 for a condo to more than $1 million for a single-family house in the Laurel Hill neighborhood. In Lorton Station, $800,000 is about average for a single-family home.
