It’s a housing-market jungle out there. In Arlington, Va., that is. Amazon’s HQ2 move into an area whose population is around 235,000, has had home buyers and sellers hustling in anticipation of the company’s arrival, effectively setting off a housing boom, reports Axios.
The company’s first wave of 25,000 employees hits the area in June, but the housing market has been in a fevered, anticipatory state for months. An agitated state as well, since tech giants are “being blamed for fueling inequality and gentrification in major cities around the country,” according to Axios. In Seattle, home base for Amazon, housing prices have doubled in the past six years. In Arlington, home prices are already rising and the market is tightening, according to real estate experts.
“I’ve been studying this market for 35 years, and I’ve never seen a circumstance like this one,” David Howell, executive vice president of McEnearney Associates Realtors, told the news site. “There certainly has been a bit of a boomlet …” Critics of the Amazon move worry that current residents near Amazon’s campus-to-be could be priced out.
In February, Amazon, in the face of criticism, pulled out of plans to build a headquarters in New York City.
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