Affordable Mostly an issue in major urban centers such as
Alexandria and
Virginia Beach,
affordable (or low-income) housing is housing that is cheaper than the market in order to provide a home for people that have low income. Those most likely to be affected by the lack in affordable housing, a Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) study found, were renters, with low incomes, that live in urban centers, and work in common and essential occupations. The study reported that 67% of cost-burdened households live in major population centers like
Northern Virginia and
Hampton Roads, with the majority of them being in Hampton Roads than the rest of the state. The most likely professions to need affordable housing were
home health aides ($22,000 salary),
teaching assistants ($29,000 salary),
bus drivers ($45,000 salary), and
social workers ($51,000 salary). The same study further reported that the state has a shortage of at least 200,000 affordable housing units. The increase in the construction of apartments is most noticeable in Northern Virginia, Richmond, and Hampton Roads. However, as of 2020, they were still behind four of Virginia's six small housing markets in terms of multi-family apartments. Since 2010, the construction of apartments has been largest in the
Blacksburg-Christiansburg,
Roanoke, and
Lynchburg areas. In 2020, more than three-quarters of all new homes in the Blacksburg-Christiansburg area were apartments, most likely due to an influx of graduates from
Virginia Tech and
Radford University.
Single-family A majority of Virginians live in single-family homes, and they make up nearly all newly built homes in the commonwealth. The rate of single-family home production has more than tripled that of multi-family home production. This extends into the neighboring state of
North Carolina, even going throughout much of the rural
Piedmont Crescent. A majority of these are in suburban markets, with most of them being built before 2008 (due to the
2008 housing crisis). A joint study by
Virginia Housing and the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) found that for every home built in an urban core of a small or rural city, more than three single-family homes were built in suburbs.
Townhouse Townhouses have only been a fraction of Virginia's newly constructed houses in the past decade, despite being the most affordable to construct. According to the Richmond Association of Realtors, the median sales price of a townhouse in the
Richmond metro area was $388,000 in September 2024. The average sales price was around $405,000, a 4,3% difference. There were 347 new listings for townhouses in September 2024, but only 272 were pending, and 226 of those were closed. Similar to apartments, lots of townhouses have been built in the Blacksburg-Christiansburg area due to an influx of graduates from schools such as Virginia Tech and Radford University. == Challenges to housing availability ==