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HII’s CEO doesn’t expect major defense spending cuts under Trump

President ‘s suggestion last week that he could cut U.S. defense spending in half spooked the stock market — but the CEOs of Virginia’s and Science Applications International Corp. are taking Trump’s statement in stride.

Thursday afternoon, Trump said, “One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia, and I want to say, ‘Let’s cut our military budget in half.’ And we can do that, and I think we’ll be able to do that.”

Shares of Virginia-based Fortune 500 aerospace and defense contractors Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics dropped following the president’s statement.

But HII President and CEO Christopher Kastner said Tuesday at a Florida tech conference he doesn’t expect China, Russia and the United States to all come together on such an initiative, or for the U.S. to slash defense spending by half.

“I’m all for world peace, but I think … it’s not really realistic to assume that’s going to happen,” Kastner said, speaking at Citi’s 2025 Global Industrial Tech and Mobility Conference in Miami. “I don’t see it unless peace breaks out somewhere.”

Toni Townes-Whitley, CEO of Reston-based SAIC, said at the Citi conference that in 2024, her Fortune 500 company pivoted its portfolio toward “more mission and enterprise IT,” a more reliable business model, no matter what new priorities take hold in the White House.

With Trump returning for a second term, she added, “it just so happens that that type of portfolio also plays well in this environment. So, I’m pleased that we did the strategy last year, and that we’re actually just executing it now.” She noted that SAIC has a $19 billion backlog of projects.

Moreover, SAIC has witnessed only “nominal disruption” to regular business in the first month of the Trump administration, Townes-Whitley said. Kastner, meanwhile, noted that HII and subsidiary are working to fulfill their current Navy contracts while waiting for the next secretary of the Navy to go through the U.S. Senate confirmation process. John Phelan, a Florida businessman with no military experience, is the president’s pick for the job. (While unusual, that’s not unprecedented. Twenty of the 26 naval secretaries confirmed since 1955 have been veterans, according to Military Times.)

Kastner did acknowledge the Trump administration’s greater speed than typically associated with the — particularly with regard to world’s richest man ‘s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with making massive federal workforce and spending .

Asked what recommendation he would make to DOGE, Kastner said, “Every person in my position can recognize going into a Pentagon meeting and seeing a lot of chairs around the table with people in them, but you’re not sure what their job is. Simplifying the oversight of the Pentagon would be positive.”

So far, DOGE’s focus has been on agencies and departments outside of the Pentagon, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of , the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the FBI. However, the Department of Defense is already preparing for DOGE aides’ arrival, including making lists of weapons that defense officials would like to see canceled, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Last week, more than 200,000 federal employees in probationary periods — people who had started roles less than a year ago, or less than two years in “excepted service” positions — were fired. They included employees of the U.S. Forest Service, the Department of Energy and the Office of Personnel Management, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“I’ve long supported our strong national defense, and have worked to secure critical funding to equip our nation’s military, provide for our veterans and strengthen our national security,” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia’s senior Democratic senator, said this week. “Now, I do encourage conversations to ensure that our defense spending is actually meeting the emerging needs of our military, but what we’ve seen from the Trump administration and Elon ‘s DOGE thus far has simply been reckless and ineffective. If they continue on this path that seems entirely devoid of a reasoned strategy, they will hurt our defense workforce in Virginia, and hurt our national security.”

However, Townes-Whitley said she feels secure in SAIC’s federal government customer base. “We are leaning in heavily with our customers to understand how they’re feeling relative to budget and funding. They’re obviously concerned about a [potential government] shutdown or a yearlong [continuing resolution].”

Without a new federal budget passed by Congress by March 14, new programs’ start dates will be delayed.

Nonetheless, Townes-Whitley added, SAIC is focused on integrating new technologies into government agencies’ existing systems, a need that she says will exist in the new administration.

“As an integrator, our goal is to ensure that commercial providers — whether they’re new tech, defense or literally part of our industrial base — that they are building in a manner that we can integrate quickly,” she said. “At the end of the day, it isn’t just about bringing great tech. It almost doesn’t matter how good the tech is, if it doesn’t integrate into the mission environment, if it doesn’t connect with coalition or allied partners. None of our fights are solo fights at this point.”

Uncertainty for now

Jerry McGinn, executive director of George Mason University’s Baroni Center for Government Contracting at its Costello College of Business, said Tuesday that “there’s a lot of uncertainty right now,” including all types of government contracting and priorities under Trump in his second term.

“Right now, there’s a great amount of disruption,” he said. “That can’t continue forever. Some of this disruption and turbulence will level out and move in different directions. I think by the summertime, you’ll have a better picture of where the administration is building and putting their principal efforts.”

A few things that firms in general can count on is that “spending around DEI or alternative energy, I would expect to stop immediately,” McGinn said. Defense spending priorities are a bit fuzzier, though.

“The idea of 50% defense spending cuts would require China and Russia to agree, and that’s almost zero chance,” McGinn said, and he would expect the Trump administration to want any new weapons or battlefield technology to reach the field faster, although “that’s been the theme for the past five or six years” under former President Joe Biden as well.

Possibly there will be more focus on small drones and unmanned systems in defense, as well as the possibility of a U.S. Iron Dome, which Trump ordered the Pentagon to prioritize in an in January, although it would require a budget change. If an Iron Dome — missile defense technology pioneered by Israel with $1.6 billion in U.S. funding — is built in the United States, that would be beneficial for “lots of government contractors” in Virginia, McGinn said.

Townes-Whitley said that the Iron Dome “by definition is an integration project. We’ve been collecting space sensor data, ground sensor data. It’s … integration of not just data but secure data at every level of security across multiple countries. We feel like we’re positioned to support [it] because of the work we do in Space Force, the Air Force and combat demands.”

Kastner called Israel’s Iron Dome a “fabulous technology. It would be great to have it, but I think it’s a ways away” for the United States.

Hampton University achieves prestigious R2 research status

Hampton announced last week that it has obtained 2 designation — making it one of the few historically Black colleges and universities to do so.

The university received the designation from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of , which ranks research institutions based on the volume and breadth of their research activity.

With the new designation, joins 139 institutions nationwide that meet the requirements of spending at least $5 million in annual research and awarding 20 or more research doctorates yearly.

Of the 101 in the United States, only 13 hold an R2 designation. The university said in a news release that this reinforces “the rarity and prestige of this classification” and that the new R2 status will increase its eligibility for competitive federal grants, help attract top-tier faculty and provide students with greater access to hands-on research opportunities.

University President Darrell K. Williams says the milestone strengthens the university’s position among the nation’s leading research institutions.

“This is a transformative, defining moment for ,” Williams said in the release. “Achieving Research 2 status reflects our unwavering dedication to academic excellence, research, and the expansion of opportunities for our students and faculty.”

While HBCUs account for only 3% of the country’s colleges and universities, they produce 25% of Black STEM graduates.

The university says its elevation to R2 status is “a vital step” in increasing the presence of Black institutions in high-level research categories.

“This designation highlights the tremendous progress Hampton has made in research and innovation,” said Neelam Azad, vice president for research, in the release. “Our faculty and students are engaged in groundbreaking research with real-world impact. Achieving Research 2 status is a significant breakthrough that not only expands our research capacity but also enhances our ability to secure funding and drive transformative advancements in critical fields of study. ”

Reports of NoVa housing market’s demise are greatly exaggerated, experts say

“See the rats run,” a Facebook post put up Saturday reads.

It’s illustrated with a map purportedly of Arlington County — a map covered with dozens of ovals indicating where houses are on the market. Many of the ovals are labeled “coming soon” or “new.”

In the wake of President and ‘s efforts to fire hundreds of federal employees via ‘s Department of Government Efficiency, has the housing market imploded?

“There are hoax postings going around the internet,” Terry Clower, professor of public policy at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, wrote in an email Monday. “There is no evidence of a large-scale housing market impact related to federal workers.”

Looking at the period between Feb. 3 and Feb. 16, 2,829 new listings came onto the Washington, D.C., market, according to Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist for , a data firm headquartered in Maryland. During the same period in 2024, the same area saw 2,820 new listings.

The region Sturtevant looked at includes Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, Manassas, Manassas Park and the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, Spotsylvania and Stafford, as well as Washington, D.C., and five Maryland localities.

“There’s no surge,” Sturtevant said. “We can’t see any surge in new listing activity.”

CEO Ryan T. McLaughlin also urged homeowners and buyers to take a breath when reading any social media posts about the collapse of the region’s real estate market.

“Like anything else on the internet, you can’t believe everything you read,” he said.

Virginia has more than 140,000 residents who work for the , according to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, the state’s junior senator. So far, the administration has moved to lay off some 200,000 of the nation’s 2.3 million civilian federal workers, while issuing return-to-office mandates across all agencies.

is keeping an eye on how the market responds to both reductions in workforce and federal mandates to return to the office. McLaughlin noted about 30% of the federal workforce is eligible for retirement.

“Some may opt out of the workforce entirely rather than face long commutes if they are mandated to return to the office,” he said. “Some may decide that they do want to commute. Some may decide they’re going to buy a home closer in D.C. … There’s so many variables.”

Even though inventory is up across the United States and in the Washington, D.C., region, according to Sturtevant, the supply of housing inventory is still below pre-pandemic levels in most markets. The state’s housing market was stagnant in 2024, with 102,509 home sales, just 4,000 more than the previous year, according to Virginia Realtors.

Some markets in the Washington, D.C., region do show an uptick in new listings. “But nothing about the geographic pattern of listing activity suggests that it is related to homeowners who are or were federal government employees,” Sturtevant said in a statement.

For instance, new listings were 27% higher in Spotsylvania, but 30% lower in nearby Stafford.

Chris Colgan, a Realtor who helps buyers and sellers in Northern Virginia, said he had clients who made offers on properties this weekend. “Every single house had multiple offers,” he said.

The data also doesn’t support a picture of panicked sellers slashing home prices. In the Washington, D.C., region last week, Sturtevant saw 6.9% of active listings had a price cut. “That is almost exactly the same as last year and almost exactly the same as a week earlier,” she said.

Sturtevant did note Monday that she was working on a report that shows the number of potential buyers requesting home tours is “dipping a little more sharply in the D.C. metro [region] than in other markets, meaning that buyers are not as interested in D.C. as they might have been last year at this time,” she said.

While there may be “some pullback in the market,” she said, “it’s certainly not this over-the-top big change in market conditions.”

Va. casinos report more than $72M in January revenue

January revenues from Virginia’s totaled $72.34 million, according to a report from the released Friday.

Last month, Hard Rock reported about $18.52 million in adjusted gaming revenues (wagers minus winnings), of which about $15.16 million came from 1,486 slots and $3.36 million came from 77 table games. The Virginia Board approved HR Bristol’s casino license in April 2022, and the Bristol casino’s temporary facility opened in July 2022, making it the first operating casino in Virginia. The permanent casino resort opened in November 2024.

After the lottery board approved its license in November 2022, opened as Virginia’s first permanent casino in January 2023. The casino in January generated more than $17.25 million from its 1,419 slots and about $8 million from its 85 table games, for a total AGR of about $25.26 million.

Caesars Virginia reported about $28.57 million in AGR, with $21.39 million coming from 1,479 slots and $7.18 million coming from 137 table games. The $800 million permanent facility opened in December 2024 in Danville. Before that, there was a temporary which received its casino license in April 2023 and opened in May 2023.

January’s casino gaming revenues were a $2.57 million decrease from the $74.91 million reported for December 2024.

Virginia law assesses a graduated tax on a casino’s adjusted gaming revenue. For the month of January, taxes from casino AGRs totaled $13 million.

Under Virginia law, 6% of a casino operator’s AGR goes to its host locality until the operator passes $200 million in AGR for the year, at which point the host locality’s tax rate rises to 7%. If an operator passes $400 million in AGR in the calendar year, that rises to 8%.

For January, Portsmouth received 6% of the Rivers Casino Portsmouth’s AGR, getting almost $1.52 million. Danville received about 6% of the Caesars Virginia casino’s adjusted gaming revenue, amounting to roughly $1.71 million. For the Bristol casino, 6% of its adjusted gaming revenue — $1.11 million last month — goes to the Regional Improvement Commission, which the General Assembly established to distribute Bristol casino tax funds throughout Southwest Virginia.

The Problem Treatment and Support Fund receives 0.8% of total taxes — about $104,176 last month. The Family and Children’s Trust Fund, which funds family violence prevention and treatment programs, receives 0.2% of the monthly total, which was approximately $26,044 in January.

Construction began on the long-awaited $750 million Norfolk casino on Friday. The remains a partner, but Boyd Gaming replaced Tennessee investor Jon Yarbrough. The entities have scrapped the name HeadWaters Resort & Casino.

In November 2024, more than 80% of Petersburg voters said yes to the city’s casino referendum.

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Construction kicks off on $750M Norfolk casino

After more than four years and amid shifting plans, has finally begun on Norfolk’s new $750 million resort.

spokesperson Jay Smith confirmed that construction on the long-awaited project kicked off Friday near Harbor Park. While a ceremonial ceremony was held in October 2024, actual site work didn’t begin until last week.

The new resort will have a 45,000-square-foot amenity deck, 13,000 square feet of meeting space, 4,000 square feet of spa and gym space, 1,500 slot machines, 50 table games, a 200-room hotel, and eight food and beverage outlets.

Casino development partners Boyd and the plan to complete the project in 2027. Last month, they announced that Virginia Beach-based S.B. Ballard Construction and Mississippi-based Yates Construction — the companies that built Rivers Casino will lead the resort’s construction.

Boyd expects to open a temporary facility late this year, with the permanent casino not opening until late 2027. The temporary casino has to be built and licensed by the Virginia State by November to meet a state deadline to retain the right for Norfolk to have a casino under the city’s 2020 casino referendum vote.

An earlier partnership between the Pamunkey tribe and Tennessee investor Jon Yarbrough fell apart, with Boyd Gaming replacing Yarbrough as the tribe’s development partner. In September, Norfolk City Council approved a development agreement between the city, the tribe and Boyd, and the new team scrapped the original HeadWaters Resort & Casino name.

operates 28 gaming properties in 10 states and is a 5% equity owner in FanDuel Group, a sports betting operator.

Three other casinos approved by voters in Danville, and Portsmouth in 2020 have already opened, and in November 2024, Petersburg voters approved their own casino referendum, clearing the way for Cordish Cos.’ $1.4 billion Live! Casino & Hotel, set to be built on an undeveloped 100-acre site off Interstate 95 in Petersburg. Legislation to build a casino in Tysons appeared stalled during this year’s General Assembly session, however.

Bon Secours plans $370M expansion of Henrico hospital

Bon Secours Mercy Health plans to break ground this summer on a $370 million renovation and expansion of Bon Secours St. Mary’s in western , the hospital’s president said Friday.

“Since the hospital opened in 1966, this is the most transformative project that we’ve taken on,” Bryan Lee said in an interview with Virginia Business.

An addition of an eight-story tower will provide about 200,000 additional square feet to St. Mary’s, at 5801 Bremo Road, close to the city line. Work on the tower should begin in the fall, and it’s expected to open in late 2027 or early 2028.

Once the tower is complete, workers will move to renovate space in the current hospital. The project will have three sources of funding.

“There’s , our parent company, the strategic capital that they deploy,” Lee said. “There are the that are out there. We requested $600 million in bonds from the state of Virginia to be used between Richmond and . And then, the third piece is a capital campaign that we will launch this summer, and we’re doing that in tandem with our .”

Two of the floors in the tower will be shell space used for future expansions. The helipad, which is currently located in a parking lot, will be moved to the top of the tower.

“These patients will move faster and directly to the level of care they need,” with the helipad on the tower, Lee said. “This will be a more efficient, direct pathway.”

The expansion will help the hospital serve a growing population, he added, and the health system anticipates the market could grow as much as 5% over the next five years.

St. Mary’s serves as Bon Secours Mercy Health’s tertiary and quaternary market hub, which means it offers highly specialized care for very sick patients. “Even today, our occupancy is over 80% for critical care beds,” Lee said.

Currently, St Mary’s has 391 beds, and that will not change with the expansion. However, patients will all have private rooms, whereas today the hospital includes a mix of private and shared spaces.

Bon Secours Mercy Health projects the expansion will create the need for 375 new positions. Currently, St. Mary’s Hospital has 2,500 employees, according to Lee.

DPR , headquartered in California, is the project’s general contractor, and Perkins&Will of Chicago is the architecture firm handling design.

Bon Secours operates three hospitals and medical centers and one outpatient facility in Roads, and the Bon Secours Richmond Health System offers a network of seven acute hospitals, primary and specialty care practices, ambulatory care sites and continuing care facilities across a 24-locality region.

UVA Health resumes gender-affirming care after federal judge’s order

Updated Feb. 15

A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order that suspended President ‘s Jan. 28 banning gender-affirming medical care for people under the age of 19, impacting patients and hospitals across the country, including in Virginia.

‘s original order — as well as Virginia Attorney Gen. ‘ interpretation of it — led to a pause in transgender care for minors by and VCU Health in late January, but with the judge’s ruling Thursday, UVA Health said it has resumed treatment for minor patients.

“Now that a federal court has issued a temporary restraining order suspending the federal executive order on gender-affirming care, UVA Health will resume the provision of those services that were previously paused in response to the order,” the health system affiliated with the of Virginia said in a statement Thursday. “UVA Health will continue to monitor legal developments in this case and provide our patients with the best care possible under Virginia and federal law.”

VCU Health at first issued a statement Thursday that it would be reviewing the order “to determine an appropriate course of action” while continuing the suspension of services, but on Friday evening, it sent out the following statement:

“VCU Health and Children’s of at VCU have received verbal guidance from the governor’s office that the Virginia attorney general’s prior directive that prohibits gender-affirming services outlined in the White House’s executive order still stands.

“Our doors have remained open, and will continue to be open, to all patients and their families for screening, counseling and all health care needs not affected by the executive order.

“We will continue to monitor developments and respond with a continued focus on our patients.”

-based Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters, which suspended the prescribing of hormone therapy and puberty blockers for gender-affirming care in February, did not respond to requests for comment Friday, but still had a notice posted on its website with the following statement: “CHKD is suspending hormone therapy and puberty blocker treatments for gender-affirming care per the White House Executive Order issued on January 28, 2025. We will remain vigilant in monitoring guidance related to this Executive Order and will be prepared to adapt rapidly if the situation changes.”

The hospital noted that it has never offered surgical treatments prohibited by Trump’s order.

Trump issued the executive order Jan. 28, and Miyares, a Republican, sent a memo to UVA Health and VCU Health on Jan. 30 advising the two publicly funded university-affiliated health systems that Trump’s executive order prohibits treating a person under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones such as androgen blockers, estrogen, progesterone or testosterone “to align an individual’s physical appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex.”

Miyares also interpreted the order as prohibiting any surgical procedures that “attempt to transform an individual’s physical appearance to align with an identity that differs from his or her sex or that attempt to alter or remove an individual’s sexual organs to minimize or destroy their natural biological functions.”

Under state law, minor patients require parental consent to receive any of these treatments.

Miyares said in his memo that “any hospital or other institution … is at risk of losing” federal research or grants, and “may involve Medicare or Medicaid conditions of participation/coverage.”

CHKD, as a private health system, did not hear directly from Miyares, but like many larger hospitals and health systems, it receives federal funding through Medicaid, which could have been at risk if the hospital had defied the president’s order. “Our determination is consistent with actions taken recently by our colleagues at UVA, VCU and other hospitals across the nation,” the Norfolk health system said in its statement Feb. 3.

CHKD’s website notes that Medicaid covers approximately 55% of its inpatient days, “the highest percentage by far of any acute care hospital in Virginia.” Also, CHKD “has a large annual shortfall between the costs we incur caring for Medicaid patients and the reimbursements we receive from Medicaid,” including $33 million in fiscal 2022.

Federal lawsuit

A few days after Trump’s order took effect, a group of transgender youth, young adults and family members joined the ACLU, GLMA and PFLAG in a federal lawsuit challenging Trump’s executive order filed in a federal court in Maryland.

One 17-year-old plaintiff, Willow, and her mother live in Richmond; according to the lawsuit, Willow had a Jan. 29 appointment canceled at VCU Health, where she sought gender-affirming medical treatment with her mother’s permission.

U.S. District Judge Brendan A. Hurson ruled Thursday that the temporary restraining order will be in effect for 14 days, and that the plaintiffs and defendants must file status reports next week.

Norfolk eyes two former school sites for development

The city government is soliciting help to figure out how to transform two former school sites into significant assets that generate tax revenue.

The city government has sent out two Requests for Information asking professional development firms to provide insights on how it should develop the former Coronado School and former Madison School properties, which are now owned by the city.

The roughly 2.7-acre Coronado school property at 1025 Widgeon Road — recently appraised at $800,000 — is located in the Coronado neighborhood and is home to a 13,133-square-foot facility. The neighborhood is in the Sewells Point Corridor in central Norfolk and is a largely residential area of single-family .

Meanwhile, the 2.8-acre former Madison School site at 3700 Bowdens Ferry Road — appraised at $4.3 million — is located in the Neighborhood on the Boulevard Corridor, in western Norfolk. The property houses a 14,069-square-foot facility, originally built in 1962. The RFI describes Lamberts Point as “a historically diverse area of Norfolk” featuring a blend of single-family homes, retail spaces and the Lambert’s Point coal-exporting facility. The site is about a mile from , which enrolls around 23,000 students and is the fifth-largest employer in Norfolk.

Norfolk wants the firms to determine the best use of the properties, “maximizing legal, financial, and physical potential” and for the suggested uses to support the growth of the adjacent residential and commercial areas. The city asks the firms to clearly explain how they plan to develop the sites, devise a project timeline and explain how the city should fund the projects in their response.

The city wants the new uses of the properties to enhance the “social, economic, and cultural fabric” of the community. The RFIs also ask the firms to explain how the projects would benefit small, woman and minority-owned businesses. The city says the aim is to transform the properties into tax-producing assets. For the Coronado site, the city says it remains open to a wide range of residential uses, whereas for the Madison site, it says it is open to a wide range of both commercial and residential uses.

The city says the RFI process is for collecting information and gauging the interest of developers, with the insights gathered helping inform Norfolk’s strategies for developing the sites. Norfolk stresses the RFIs are not a competitive solicitation, and that the city will evaluate the responses solely for informational purposes and will not lead to the city awarding any contract.

However, the city says the information obtained in the process might inform the creation of a future competitive solicitation.

For both RFIs, the city says it must receive all responses no later than 4 p.m. Feb. 28.

City officials did not return requests for comment by press time.

Jan. housing inventory, prices increase in NoVa, Hampton Roads

Housing sales last month increased year-over-year in Northern Virginia but dropped in Roads, although and sales prices rose in both regions.

Northern Virginia

Home sales, prices and inventory in Northern Virginia rose year-over-year in January, according to data released Tuesday.

Last month, 833 sold in Northern Virginia, up 8% from January 2024 — the first time the region has had a year-over-year sales increase in January since 2021.

“The beginning of 2025 has reaffirmed the strength of Northern Virginia’s market,” NVAR CEO Ryan McLaughlin said in a statement. “With closed sales up and price growth remaining steady, buyers are actively engaging in the market despite fluctuating economic conditions.”

New pending sales, however, fell 9.7% from January 2024, to 933 units. According to NVAR, that decline indicates some buyers may be adjusting to changing affordability conditions as prices rise.

Inventory in January also showed signs of improvement, according to NVAR. The month’s supply of inventory (MSI) — a measure of how many months there would be homes on the market if no new inventory were added — increased to 0.92, up 25.1% from the same month last year.

January 2025 statistics for Northern Virginia. Image courtesy Northern Virginia Association of Realtors

There were 1,261 active listings on the Northern Virginia market in January, up 28.5% year-over-year. New listings, though, totaled 995 units, remaining below the five-year average.

Homes spent an average of 31 days on the market last month, a 6.9% increase from January 2024.

The median sold price last month was $685,000, up 5.4% compared with January 2024. In turn, the total sold volume was more than $698 million, up 19.2% year-over-year.

“While rising inventory is a welcome trend, the market remains dynamic,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “With steady price appreciation and strong overall demand, Northern Virginia continues to be an attractive destination for homeownership.”

NVAR reports home sales activity for Fairfax and Arlington counties, the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church, and the towns of Vienna, Herndon and Clifton.

Housing sales in Hampton Roads dropped year-over-year in January, although inventory increased, according to data released Monday by the Information Network ().

Closed home sales in the region totaled 1,389 last month, down 5.51% from the 1,470 closed sales recorded in January 2024 and down from 1,901 in December 2024.

There were 1,748 pending sales in January, down from 1,765 in the same month last year but up from 1,662 in December 2024.

Active listings totaled 4,366 in January — a 23% year-over-year increase in homes for sale. In January 2024, there were 3,538 active listings, and in December 2024, there were 4,072 active listings. The MSI stood at 2.12, up from 1.72 last year and from 1.97 in December 2024.

January 2025 housing market data for Hampton Roads. Image courtesy

“Additional inventory is always good for prospective homebuyers,” Barbara Wolcott with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices RW Towne Realty, president of REIN’s board of directors, said in a statement. “Likewise, the increased number of homes can help drive down prices for buyers, which is especially helpful since mortgage rates continue to climb.”

The median sales price in Hampton Roads was $340,000 in January, up from $320,500 in January 2024 and $355,000 in December 2024.

Homes spent a median of 27 days on the market in January, down from the 32-day median recorded in January 2024 and from the 29-day median in December 2024.

Founded in 1969, REIN is a regional multiple listing service that covers an area stretching from Williamsburg east to Virginia Beach and south across the North Carolina border.