Updated September 2026
Most sellers at this price point call us before they have decided anything. They have decided one thing: they don't want the neighborhood to know yet.
That single sentence turns into three separate decisions, and they pull against each other. How quiet the listing stays. What number goes on it. How many buyers ever see it. Handle one well and mishandle another, and you've either paid for privacy you didn't need or given up privacy you wanted.
Here is how each one works in Alexandria right now.
Discretion is a filing category now, not a favor
"Keep this quiet" used to be an understanding between a seller and an agent. It's a rule-bound choice now, with two named paths that are easy to confuse.
NAR's Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy, which took effect in March 2025, defines them this way:
Office exclusive: "an exempt listing where the seller has directed that their property not be disseminated through the MLS and not be publicly marketed."
Delayed marketing: "an exempt listing where the seller has directed the listing broker to delay the public marketing of that listing through IDX and syndication for any period as allowed by the local MLS."
Read those twice. They are not two phrasings of the same thing.
Office exclusive holds the property out of the MLS altogether. Delayed marketing puts it in the MLS and defers only the public-facing part, the IDX feeds and the syndication out to portals. A seller who says "I want this quiet" usually means the second one. It is very easy to end up with the first.
Table 1. The three listing paths as defined by NAR's Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy, effective March 25, 2025.
Path | In the MLS? | Public marketing (IDX and syndication) | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|---|
Office exclusive | Filed as an exempt listing, not disseminated through the MLS | None | The listing brokerage and its agents |
Delayed marketing | Yes, as an exempt listing | Deferred for a period the local MLS allows | Cooperating brokers working the MLS, and their buyers |
Standard MLS listing | Yes | Immediate | Everyone, including portals and search |
Source: NAR, Multiple Listing Options for Sellers, read September 2026.
The certification is on your side
Neither exempt path is a handshake. NAR's policy states that "the filing of an exempt listing (office exclusive or delayed marketing) with the MLS must be pursuant to a certification obtained by the listing broker from the seller."
That signature can feel like one more piece of paper at a moment when you want less paper, not more. It isn't. It's the document that establishes you chose the exposure you got, in writing, on a date. Nobody gets to characterize your decision differently later.
Clear Cooperation still applies
The new options did not repeal the filing clock. NAR's policy says so directly: it "does not change an MLS's local mandatory submission deadlines or CCP and its requirement to file a listing with the MLS within one (1) business day from public marketing."
Practically, that means the moment a property is publicly marketed, the MLS filing follows within one business day. A yard sign, a public social post, a website page. Those start the clock, and the exempt paths exist precisely so that you can decide, on purpose, not to start it yet.
How long delayed marketing can run
The window is set locally, not nationally. NAR's policy allows the delay "for any period as allowed by the local MLS," and for Alexandria that authority is Bright MLS.
We aren't publishing a day count here, because the current Bright MLS number should reach you from the rule book with a date on it, not from a blog post. We confirm it with you in writing before anything is filed.
Pricing: there is a financing seam just above the median
Alexandria City's median sale price for homes sold in July 2026 was $707,000, according to Bright MLS data in Long & Foster's August 2026 market report for Alexandria City. A luxury listing here sits well above that, and the distance matters for a documentable reason.
FHFA set the 2026 conforming loan limit for a one-unit property at $832,750, an increase of $26,250 from 2025. In areas FHFA designates high-cost, the 2026 ceiling on a one-unit property is $1,249,125. Northern Virginia has carried the high-cost designation for years, and FHFA publishes the limit county by county, so the number that governs your buyer's loan is a lookup rather than a guess. Ask your lender to confirm it before you set a list price around it.
Wherever that line falls for your buyer, a great many Alexandria luxury list prices land above it, past the point where conventional conforming financing stops. Above the line, your buyer pool is jumbo-qualified borrowers and cash. Smaller. Slower. Heavier on documentation. It does not behave like the pool below the line, and the difference between a list price that sits just under the applicable ceiling and one that sits just over it is not a rounding decision.
The market you're pricing into
Supply is tight, and not only here. Alexandria City carried 2.3 months of inventory in July 2026, per the August 2026 Long & Foster market report for Alexandria City, with data from Bright MLS. On the reports' own legend, anything under four months is a seller's market. Every market our sellers compete with is under four.
Chart 1. Months of inventory for July 2026, as published in the August 2026 Long & Foster market reports for each area, with data from Bright MLS. Alexandria City, Arlington, and Fairfax, Virginia; Capitol Hill and Georgetown, Washington, DC. Areas shown are the report areas, not counties.
For scale at a different level of geography: NAR put months of supply for existing homes at 4.6 nationally in July 2026. That is a United States figure, not an Alexandria one. It sits here only to show how much tighter these local markets are than the national picture, and the two shouldn't be read as the same measurement of the same place.
One number worth knowing for your own timing. As of August 14, 2026, there were 399 homes for sale in Alexandria City and 160 under contract. That is a snapshot on a date, not a monthly average.
What it costs to carry, and what it costs to close
Both scale with price, and both are published in advance. No guessing required.
Table 2. Alexandria City seller-side and buyer-side transaction costs, FY 2026 rates, read September 2026. Median sale price is Alexandria City, homes sold July 2026, per the August 2026 Long & Foster market report with data from Bright MLS.
Item | Published rate | Estimate |
|---|---|---|
Real estate tax, FY 2026 | $1.135 per $100 of assessed value | $8,024.45 a year at the $707,000 Alexandria City median |
Virginia grantor's tax, seller paid | $0.50 per $500 of consideration | Rolled into the combined figure below |
Northern Virginia additional grantor's tax, seller paid | $0.10 per $100 of consideration | Rolled into the combined figure below |
Combined seller grantor's tax (our calculation) | 0.2% of price | About $1,414 at the $707,000 Alexandria City median |
State recordation tax on the deed | $0.25 per $100 | Buyer side, not a seller cost |
City recordation tax on the deed | $0.083 per $100 | Buyer side, not a seller cost |
Rates from the City of Alexandria tax rates and recordation tax pages.
The combined grantor's tax is our arithmetic, and here it is. Virginia's $0.50 per $500 is the same thing as $0.10 per $100. Add the Northern Virginia charge of $0.10 per $100 on top, and the seller side comes to 0.2% of the price.
Two assumptions inside those estimates, stated plainly. They treat assessed value as equal to sale price, which frequently isn't so. And they ignore the statutory rounding up to the next $500 or $100 increment, so the actual grantor's tax will be equal or a few dollars higher.
Alexandria also charges a stormwater utility fee of $324.10 per Equivalent Residential Unit for FY 2026. Confirm with the city how many units your parcel is billed for rather than assuming one.
This is general information and is not legal or tax advice.
Reach: your buyer is shopping Georgetown too
Chart 2. Median sale price for homes sold in July 2026, as published in the August 2026 Long & Foster market reports for each area, with data from Bright MLS. Alexandria City, Arlington, and Fairfax, Virginia; Capitol Hill and Georgetown, Washington, DC. Areas shown are the report areas, not counties.
These are the July 2026 medians across the markets our sellers actually compete with, all from the August 2026 Long & Foster market reports with data from Bright MLS: Alexandria City $707,000, Fairfax $731,000, Arlington $827,450, Capitol Hill $990,000, Georgetown $1,575,000.
Georgetown deserves a caveat rather than a headline. Its July median rests on 31 sales, and in a low-volume luxury market a median moves with the mix of homes that happened to trade that month. Read it as the median for July, not as the value of a Georgetown house.
Even with that caveat, the spread is the whole argument for reach. A buyer whose budget clears the conforming ceiling is not shopping one jurisdiction. They're looking at Old Town, and at Capitol Hill, and at Georgetown, in the same week, mostly through feeds that pull from the MLS.
Which is the real cost of an office exclusive, and it isn't that nobody finds the house. It's that the cross-market buyer, the one weighing your block against a Georgetown listing at a very different price, never had it in front of them at all.
Delayed marketing is the middle position. The listing lives in the MLS, so cooperating brokers and their buyers can work it, while the public feeds wait. For a lot of Alexandria sellers that turns out to be the answer, and they never needed the full office exclusive they walked in asking about.
All three paths are legitimate. The mistake isn't choosing discretion. It's choosing it without knowing what it costs.
Alexandria prep items worth settling before anyone sees the house
None of these are judgments about a block. They're disclosure and preparation items that surface in this city more than in most, and they're easier to handle before you're under contract:
- Design review in the Old and Historic Alexandria District and in Parker-Gray, for any exterior work you're weighing before you list.
- Special flood hazard area status near the Old Town waterfront and along Four Mile Run.
- Marine clay soils, and the foundation and drainage documentation that follows from them.
- Aircraft noise on the National approach.
- Proximity to Fort Belvoir, the Mark Center, and the Pentagon.
How we'd work through it with you
The order matters. Discretion first, because it decides who can see the property at all. Then price, because the conforming seam decides which buyers can finance it. Then reach, because reach is the thing you're trading away when you choose quiet, and you should trade it on purpose and know the exchange rate.
Elizabeth has been licensed in Virginia since 2002 and founded The LizLuke Team in 2003. Most of our business comes from referrals and repeat clients, and we work the whole market, small condos through the high end.
If you're thinking about a quiet sale, or you'd just like to know how your house looks priced against the current comps, reach out. Elizabeth Lucchesi and The LizLuke Team at LONG & FOSTER REAL ESTATE INC are at lizluke.com, and it all starts with a conversation.
Sources
- National Association of REALTORS®, Multiple Listing Options for Sellers. Office exclusive and delayed marketing definitions, the seller certification requirement, and the Clear Cooperation filing requirement.
- Federal Housing Finance Agency, Conforming Loan Limit Values for 2026. Baseline one-unit limit and the high-cost area ceiling.
- City of Alexandria, Tax Rates. FY 2026 real estate tax rate and stormwater utility fee.
- City of Alexandria, Recordation Tax. Grantor's tax, Northern Virginia additional grantor's tax, and state and city recordation rates.
- National Association of REALTORS®, Existing-Home Sales, July 2026. National months of supply.
- Long & Foster Real Estate, "Community Market Report: Alexandria City, Virginia," August 2026. Data provided by Bright MLS and Williamsburg Area AOR MLS.
- Long & Foster Real Estate, "Community Market Report: Arlington, Virginia," August 2026. Data provided by Bright MLS and Williamsburg Area AOR MLS.
- Long & Foster Real Estate, "Community Market Report: Fairfax, Virginia," August 2026. Data provided by Bright MLS and Williamsburg Area AOR MLS.
- Long & Foster Real Estate, "Neighborhood Market Report: Capitol Hill, Washington, DC," August 2026. Data provided by Bright MLS.
- Long & Foster Real Estate, "Community Market Report: Georgetown, Washington, DC," August 2026. Data provided by Bright MLS.
Every figure above was read at the source as of the update date on this page. Rates and program terms change, so confirm current requirements before relying on them.
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.
