Dramatic increases in property values over the past five years have caused a marked rise in housing costs, according to Charlottesville City Council member Blake Caravati.
Property costs "have been rising precipitously since 2001, in the range from 12 to 18 percent and even 40 percent in some neighborhoods," Caravati said. "The average this year across the board is about 50 percent across."
City Assessor Roosevelt Barbour said he has observed housing sales this year and said he foresees that 2006 will also see increases in real estate values.
"2006 prices are continuing slowly but still continuing," Barbour said. "They are still higher than the 2005 assessments."
Caravati added that University students have contributed to the soaring real estate market.
"A lot of the real estate values, a great portion of this increase is because of students," Caravati said. Students "go into the private real estate market to rent places, and it causes values in those districts to go way up."
Caravati added that student real estate activity has encouraged intense construction around the University.
"You see a lot of big projects coming out of the ground, like one on 15th Street," Caravati said. "The actual economic rents have not been rising as fast as real estate because there is an over-supply. The land is so valuable, people can charge as high as they want."
Caravati said the Council has been taking steps to ease Charlottesville's housing problem, which could be considered worse thannotoriously expensive Fairfax County in Northern Virginia.
"Our biggest [housing] problem is that people can't afford," Caravati said. "We don't want that so we are taking measures to get around that but the state is not particularly aggressive [in solving the problem]."
Barbour said with all the new off-Grounds housing growth, students will not face a housing shortage, but they will continue to rent at higher prices.
"As long as there's not a shortage, the rents should be somewhat low, but the increased amount of people at the University is going to affect the supply and demand," Barbour said. "If you have more students and they can't meet demand, then the price will be higher. Charlottesville housing prices are on the rise."
Caravati said the City Council's housing concern is more for the family units than for students.
"It affects the families more than it does the students," Caravati said. "Think about the service workers at the University -- where do you think they live? They are either living in Louisa County and getting rides in, or they are living in slum houses."
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