Buying a Condo in Old Town Alexandria: Buildings, Fees, and Market Numbers

Updated August 2026

You've been walking the same handful of blocks for a while now. Maybe a year, maybe longer. Somewhere between the Torpedo Factory and a Saturday morning on King Street, you started opening the condo listings instead of scrolling past them, and now you're looking at a monthly fee attached to a home you like, wondering whether that number is fair.

That's the question this page is built around.

Not a promise about what any building is worth. The things you can actually check: what the market data does and doesn't cover, what a condo costs to hold in the City of Alexandria, what the resale certificate is required to tell you, and what a historic district adds to the list.

Start with what the market numbers actually cover

Alexandria City recorded 171 closed home sales in July 2026 at a median sale price of $707,000, with 399 homes for sale as of August 14, 2026, according to Bright MLS data in Long & Foster's August 2026 market report for Alexandria City.

Read that twice, because both halves matter to a condo buyer.

Those are all housing types, city-wide. Alexandria City is the whole independent city, from the waterfront to the West End, and Old Town is one piece of it. A condo on Prince Street and a detached house off Seminary Road both land inside that 171. There is no condo-only cut and no Old Town-only cut in the Bright MLS data behind this page, so $707,000 is a fair anchor for the city and is not an Old Town condo price. We're not going to use it as one.

If you want the Old Town condo segment specifically, that is a live Bright MLS pull we can run against current inventory for you.

For regional context, and again all housing types: Arlington's July 2026 median sale price was $827,450 and Fairfax's was $731,000, both from the same August 2026 Long & Foster report series. Fairfax there is the report's Fairfax community area, which is a good deal smaller than Fairfax County, so don't read it as a county-wide number. Alexandria City's July 2026 median sits below both.

Chart 1. Median sale price, all housing types, July 2026. Alexandria City, Arlington, and Fairfax, Virginia, as those areas are defined in the source reports. Source: Long & Foster August 2026 community market reports, data provided by Bright MLS and Williamsburg Area AOR MLS. Zero baseline.

One more figure worth carrying into a showing. Alexandria City ran 2.3 months of inventory in July 2026, which the report's own legend puts in seller's-market territory, anything under four months. Homes sold in a median of 12 days and a third of them closed above the original asking price. That is the backdrop your offer gets written against, whatever the building.

What a condo actually costs to hold

The purchase price is the part everybody negotiates. The carrying cost is the part that decides whether you still like the place in year three.

The condo fee

There is no public source that publishes current monthly fees, building by building, for Old Town. The real figure for a specific unit lives in the listing data and in the association's own documents, which is where we pull it from when you get serious about an address.

What you can evaluate, before any number appears, is what the fee is buying:

• What is included. Water, gas, master insurance, trash, staffing, parking, and building systems vary widely from one association to the next. Two fees that look identical can cover very different things.
• The reserve study and the reserve balance. An underfunded reserve is a future special assessment with a later date on it.
• Special assessment history, and anything pending. Ask for both. Past behavior tells you how the board handles big-ticket repairs.
• Master association versus sub-association. Some Old Town communities carry two layers, which means two fees and two sets of rules.
• Rental and pet restrictions. These sit in the governing documents, not in the listing remarks.
• Insurance. The association's master policy and your own coverage meet somewhere, and where they meet is a conversation for your insurance agent with the association's documents in hand.

Alexandria real estate tax

The City of Alexandria's real estate tax rate is $1.135 per $100 of assessed value for tax year 2026, set by City Council on April 29, 2026 (City of Alexandria). It is billed in two installments, due June 15 and November 15, or the next business day.

A stormwater utility fee is billed separately in May and October, and a refuse collection fee applies to certain residential properties (City of Alexandria). Properties inside the Potomac Yard Tier I Special Services District pay an additional $0.20 per $100 of assessed value. Potomac Yard is not Old Town, but confirming which special districts touch an address is a five-minute check worth making.

Run the arithmetic on the city's own average and you get a method, not your number. A condo assessed at the CY2026 city-wide average of $460,185 would carry about $5,223 in city real estate tax for the year at the 2026 rate. That's our calculation ($460,185 multiplied by $1.135 per $100), it excludes the stormwater and refuse fees, and an Old Town condo is not the average Alexandria condo.

The City also runs a Real Estate Tax Relief Program for residents 65 and older and residents with permanent disabilities, offering full or partial exemption and deferral (City of Alexandria). Eligibility is limited, and the Treasury Division at 703.746.4800 can give you the current thresholds. Your CPA can tell you how any of this lands on your own return.

What the assessment data says about the condo segment

Assessed value is not sale price. Assessments are the City's figure for tax purposes, set as of January 1. Bright MLS medians are closed sales. Keep the two in separate columns and neither one will mislead you.

With that said, the assessment roll is the one place the condo segment gets counted on its own. The average assessed value of an Alexandria residential condominium rose 2.81% for CY2026, from $447,612 to $460,185, according to City assessment data reported by ALXnow in February 2026. Single-family homes rose 4.44% over the same period, to an average of $1,045,750. Alexandria's residential tax base grew 4.40% for CY2026, from $31.5 billion to $32.9 billion, both endpoints rounded to the nearest $0.1 billion.

The condo segment moved more slowly than the detached segment for CY2026. That is the whole claim, and it is a statement about assessed values in one year, not a forecast about anything.

Chart 2. Change in average assessed value, CY2025 to CY2026, City of Alexandria, Virginia, by property type. Source: City of Alexandria assessment data as reported by ALXnow, February 2026. Zero baseline.

A vintage note on those figures: the CY2025 condominium average of $447,612 is confirmed on the City's own real property assessment page, but that page still displayed CY2025 data when we opened it in August 2026, so the CY2026 numbers here are attributed to ALXnow's February 2026 reporting on the City's release rather than to a City URL.

The resale certificate, and the clock it starts

This is the part of a Virginia condo purchase with real teeth, and the part most buyers meet for the first time under deadline pressure.

Condominium and HOA resale disclosure in Virginia runs through the Virginia Resale Disclosure Act, Title 55.1, Chapter 23.1 of the Code of Virginia. If you bought a condo here years ago and remember requesting a "resale packet," the terminology has moved on. The document is a resale certificate now, and the same act covers condominiums and homeowners associations alike.

Section 55.1-2310 sets out what has to be in it. Roughly thirty items, including the governing documents and rules, current and unpaid assessments, reserve study information, board meeting minutes, insurance coverage, rental restrictions, restrictions on flags and solar devices, and any pending litigation affecting the association.

Then there are the deadlines, and they run in both directions.

Table 1. Resale certificate delivery and cancellation windows under the Virginia Resale Disclosure Act, Title 55.1, Chapter 23.1, Code of Virginia, statute as published at law.lis.virginia.gov and read August 2026.

That last row is the one to sit with. If the certificate never arrives, your right to cancel runs all the way to settlement.

On cost: the statute sets no dollar caps itself. Section 55.1-2316(C) delegates maximum fees to the Common Interest Community Board, which has to set fees that are "commercially reasonable and consistent with the effort required," adjusted every five years for changes in the Consumer Price Index. The Board publishes a Maximum Allowable Preparation Fees schedule through the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation; the version posted when we checked in August 2026 carries a 07/01/2023 date, so read the current schedule at the time you order rather than working from a figure you remember.

One change that catches repeat buyers: resale certificate fees are now due when the item is ordered rather than at settlement, unless the association has adopted a different policy (Virginia DPOR).

Sizing up a building inside a historic district

Old Town's condo stock is not one thing. In our experience walking these buildings with buyers, you are usually choosing among a converted historic structure, a purpose-built mid-rise closer to the water, and townhouse-style condominiums where the association's job looks more like a small HOA. Reserve obligations and exterior-maintenance responsibility work differently in each, and none of that difference shows up in the monthly fee line on a listing. That is our read from the field, not a published finding.

The public record part is well documented.

The Old and Historic Alexandria District was established in 1946 and is the third oldest historic district in the United States (City of Alexandria). It runs from Hunting Creek at the southern edge of the city north to Bashford Lane, and from the Potomac River west to near the King Street Metro. The Parker-Gray District covers roughly 40 blocks and takes its name from the Parker Gray School, which opened in 1920. Local district boundaries are not the same as the National Register boundaries, and the City's Historic Preservation Map viewer is the authority for any specific address.

Inside those districts, a seven-member Board of Architectural Review appointed by City Council regulates exterior changes. A Certificate of Appropriateness is required for new construction and for exterior alterations to structures visible from a public way. A Permit to Demolish is required for removing more than 25 square feet of material, visible or not. Buildings designated individually by City Council ordinance fall under the same review even outside the two local districts (City of Alexandria).

How that review reaches an individual unit owner in a multifamily building, as opposed to the association, is not something we found written down in a public source. So ask the building, and ask before you fall for a unit with windows you would want to change:

• Who files for a Certificate of Appropriateness here, the owner or the association?
• What is the process for replacing a window, a door, a shutter, or an HVAC condenser?
• Has the board been through Board of Architectural Review recently, and how did it go?

City Historic Preservation staff at 703.746.3833 can tell you what a district requires. Only the association can tell you who carries the obligation.

The short list to work from

If you take one thing from this page into your next showing, take this list:

1. Ask for the resale certificate in writing early, and calendar the delivery date.
2. Read the reserve study before you read the amenity list.
3. Ask for five years of special assessment history and anything currently under discussion.
4. Confirm whether there is a master association above the building.
5. Confirm which special tax districts, if any, apply to the address.
6. Ask the association how exterior changes route through the Board of Architectural Review.
7. Take the fee, the tax, and the insurance to your lender together, not separately.

Let's talk about a specific building

Elizabeth Lucchesi founded The LizLuke Team in 2003 and has been selling these blocks ever since. She's lived in Del Ray since 1993. Most of our business comes from referrals and repeat clients, which means we tend to meet people long before they're ready to write an offer.

If you're weighing a specific Old Town building, we'd be glad to pull the current fee, the sales history for that address, and the association documents, then sit down with all of it together. You can find us at lizluke.com.

It starts with a conversation.

Sources

• City of Alexandria, Real Estate Tax Information. Tax year 2026 rate, installment due dates, stormwater and refuse fees, Potomac Yard special district, tax relief program.
• City of Alexandria, Real Property Assessment Information. CY2025 average assessed values.
• ALXnow, "Alexandria residents fuel 3.4% rise in tax base, new assessments show," February 27, 2026. CY2026 assessment averages and tax base change, reporting City assessment data. The 3.4% in the headline is the total tax base; the 4.40% cited above is the residential tax base.
• Code of Virginia, Title 55.1, Chapter 23.1, Virginia Resale Disclosure Act. Certificate contents, delivery deadlines, cancellation rights, fee-setting delegation.
• Virginia DPOR, Common Interest Community Association Disclosures. Maximum Allowable Preparation Fees schedule, version 07/01/2023, and fee timing.
• City of Alexandria, Old and Historic Alexandria and Parker-Gray Districts. District history, boundaries, Board of Architectural Review, Certificate of Appropriateness, Permit to Demolish.
• Long & Foster Real Estate, "Community Market Report: Alexandria City, Virginia," August 2026. Data provided by Bright MLS and Williamsburg Area AOR MLS. July 2026 closed sales and median sale price; active listings and months of inventory as of August 14, 2026; all housing types.
• Long & Foster Real Estate, "Community Market Report: Arlington, Virginia," August 2026. Data provided by Bright MLS and Williamsburg Area AOR MLS. July 2026 median sale price, all housing types.
• Long & Foster Real Estate, "Community Market Report: Fairfax, Virginia," August 2026. Data provided by Bright MLS and Williamsburg Area AOR MLS. July 2026 median sale price, all housing types.

Disclosure

This is general information and is not legal or tax advice.

The LizLuke Team at LONG & FOSTER REAL ESTATE INC. 110 N Royal St, 3rd Floor, Alexandria, VA 22314. Office 703.683.0400. The LizLuke Team (703) 868-5676. Virginia License #0225069250.

Equal Housing Opportunity.

All information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.