Amazon HQ2 Next Steps.

[Account Closed]

It looks like the next step in the Amazon HQ2 saga will be for a smaller list of final finalists (five or less)  to get their incentive packages approved.  So far none of the incentives have gotten officially approved because they are still secret.

Everyone needs to start watching the postings of the public meeting agendas.

[Bobby Montagne]

Winning half of Amazon’s HQ2 is no consolation prize — the news means 25,000 new jobs for the region, and many of them will command salaries on average of $150,000 per year. That salary estimate means a lot of people will be looking for homes that are commensurate with a higher wage.

Of course, the DC Metro area doesn’t have the means to staff all of those jobs, so Amazon will have to move people to the region. So on top of needing homes to match high salaries, the region will also need to find housing for a lot of new residents. And to meet the needs of job growth, we can expect residential real estate growth as well.

It’s also worth noting that a lot of the new hires at Amazon will be millennials, who are far more likely to rent before they buy. Knowing this, expect to see a sizable impact on luxury apartment buildings first. After 12 to 24 months, these new residents will be looking to buy, and that is the point at which the mid-range housing market will feel the most pressure.

For real estate investors, this news means that it might not be a bad idea to invest in multi-family units, as well as holding onto any fix and flip homes as rentals for a couple of years to see what happens to the prices in their investment neighborhood.