A median-priced Reston townhouse costs about $4,628 a month to own in 2026, with 20 percent down at the current 7.40 percent mortgage rate, before insurance and utilities. A median condominium runs about $3,105 a month, and a median detached house about $7,348. Taxes and association fees alone run $10,000 to $14,300 a year.
Those figures come from the 791 Reston homes that closed in the first nine months of 2026, priced against Fairfax County’s 2026 tax rates, the 2026 Reston Association assessment, and the fees each seller listed. National cost-of-living calculators average Reston into a single index number. A buyer needs the bill for a specific kind of home, and the three kinds of homes in Reston carry very different bills.
This post is part of our series answering the most common questions about living in Reston.
A median Reston townhouse costs about $4,600 a month to own
Reston’s 2026 sales split into three markets with three price points. Through September, 290 townhouses sold at a median of $675,000, 315 condominiums sold at a median of $380,000, and 186 detached houses sold at a median of $1,112,500.
The table prices each home at its median, with 20 percent down and a 30-year fixed loan at 7.40 percent, Freddie Mac’s weekly average for October 8, 2026:
| Monthly cost | Condominium | Townhouse | Detached house |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median 2026 sale price | $380,000 | $675,000 | $1,112,500 |
| Down payment at 20% | $76,000 | $135,000 | $222,500 |
| Principal and interest | $2,105 | $3,739 | $6,162 |
| County real estate tax | $380 | $675 | $1,112 |
| Reston Association assessment | $74 | $74 | $74 |
| Condo or cluster fee (median) | $546 | $140 | varies |
| Total before insurance and utilities | $3,105 | $4,628 | $7,348 |
The mortgage payment is the largest line for every home type, and it is the only one that shrinks with a bigger down payment. Everything below it in the table stays the same whether you put down 5 percent or 50.
Strip the mortgage out and the order changes. A median Reston condo carries about $11,995 a year in taxes and fees. A median townhouse carries about $10,667. The condominium costs less to buy and more to hold, because its association fee is four times a townhouse cluster fee.
Fairfax County taxes a Reston home at about 1.2 percent of its value each year
Reston has no town government, so it has no town tax. Fairfax County collects one real estate bill, and for a Reston address it stacks three rates for 2026:
- County real estate tax: $1.12 per $100 of assessed value. The Board of Supervisors cut the rate by a quarter cent from $1.1225 when it adopted the budget on May 5, 2026.
- Reston Community Center district: $0.047 per $100. Reston’s Small District 5 tax funds the Reston Community Center at Hunters Woods and Lake Anne, and district residents pay lower program fees there.
- Countywide stormwater district: $0.0325 per $100.
Together that comes to $1.1995 per $100, or just under 1.2 percent of a home’s assessed value. On the townhouse median, the bill comes to about $8,097 a year. On the detached median, about $13,344.
The county taxes the assessed value, not the price you paid. The Department of Tax Administration reassesses every property each January, and its number can land above or below a recent sale price. Look up the current assessment for any address before you write an offer, and budget the tax from that figure.
Two smaller lines show up for some owners and not others. Homes in a county refuse collection area pay a $630 refuse charge on the tax bill. Many Reston clusters contract trash pickup privately and fold the cost into the cluster fee instead, which the resale packet will show. And owners over 65 or permanently disabled who meet the county’s income limits can qualify for the county’s tax relief program, which also cuts the Reston Association assessment in half.
Every Reston Association lot owes $890 for 2026
The Reston Association assessment is $890 per lot for 2026, up from $848 in 2025, and it comes due January 1. That works out to about $74 a month, though RA bills it once a year. It pays for 15 pools, 55 miles of paved pathways, the lakes, the Walker Nature Center and covenant enforcement, and our Reston Association fees guide breaks down where each dollar goes.
The assessment has climbed every year since 2021, from $718 to $890, so budget for it to rise again. The RA board sets the 2027 figure each November.
Not every Reston address belongs to RA. More than 3,000 housing units approved around the Metro stations carry no RA membership commitment, and Reston Town Center properties answer to the Reston Town Center Association instead. Check the membership for the specific address. It changes both the annual cost and pool access.
Cluster fees add about $140 a month to a typical Reston townhouse
Most Reston townhouses sit in a cluster, Reston’s term for a sub-association that owns a block of homes’ shared parking, common grounds and sometimes private streets. The cluster sets its own budget and bills its own fee on top of the RA assessment.
Townhouses that sold in Reston this year listed a median association fee of $1,680 a year, or $140 a month. Half of them fell between $1,300 and $2,090 a year. Listings do not handle the RA assessment consistently: some show only the cluster fee, and some fold the $890 into it. Budget the $890 on top of whatever the listing shows, as the table above does, and let the resale packet confirm the exact split.
Most Reston detached houses belong to RA and nothing else. About a third of the detached homes sold this year also listed a cluster or homeowners association fee, with a median of $1,365 a year.
Reston condo fees run about $546 a month
A condominium fee pays for far more than a cluster fee does. It typically covers the building’s master insurance policy, exterior and roof maintenance, the elevators and hallways, reserves for future repairs, and in some buildings water, trash or heat.
Reston condominiums sold in 2026 listed a median fee of $6,547 a year, or about $546 a month. Half fell between $5,412 and $7,932 a year, or roughly $451 to $661 a month. The fee usually tracks the building more than the unit: an older garden-style building and a newer elevator building near a Metro station can charge very different amounts for similar square footage.
Most Reston condos also owe the $890 RA assessment as a separate bill, and some newer buildings near the stations owe none. Ask whether the condo fee includes RA membership before you compare two buildings.
Read the building’s reserve study and budget along with the monthly fee. A building that keeps its fee low by underfunding reserves tends to send owners a special assessment, a one-time bill for a major repair, later.
The mortgage rate added more to the monthly bill than prices did
Reston’s townhouse median through September was $675,000, the same as it was through September 2025. The monthly payment on that townhouse still rose, because Freddie Mac’s average 30-year rate went from 6.30 percent a year ago to 7.40 percent this week.
At 20 percent down, principal and interest on a $675,000 townhouse came to about $3,342 a month at last year’s rate. At this week’s rate, it comes to $3,739. Same price, $397 more every month.
The condominium market shows the same effect from the other direction. Reston’s condo median fell from $395,000 to $380,000, and the monthly payment still rose by about $149, from $1,956 to $2,105. The detached median rose 5.7 percent, from $1,052,850 to $1,112,500, and the higher rate on a larger loan added about $949 a month.
A rate a full point lower would erase most of those increases, and a higher one would widen them. Run a monthly budget at a rate a quarter or half point above today’s before you set your price range.
Fairfax homeowners insurance averages about $154 a month
Homeowners insurance in Fairfax averaged about $1,850 a year, or $154 a month, in NerdWallet’s 2026 rate survey, which assumes $400,000 in dwelling coverage and a $1,000 deductible. A detached house needs that full policy. A condominium owner buys a smaller HO-6 policy for the interior and personal property, because the building’s master policy covers the structure.
Electricity, water and sewer add about $320 a month for a typical household
Utilities depend more on the house than on the town, and three public rate schedules set the baseline.
- Electricity. Dominion Energy’s typical bill for a household using 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month was $158.86 in December 2025, according to the Virginia Department of Energy. A base-rate increase of $11.24 took effect January 1, 2026, which puts the same household near $170 a month. A kilowatt-hour is the unit on the meter: running a 1,000-watt space heater for an hour uses one.
- Water and sewer. Fairfax Water charges a $17.55 quarterly service charge plus $4.35 per 1,000 gallons, and the county adds a $55.78 quarterly sewer base charge plus $9.88 per 1,000 gallons for fiscal 2027, according to the county’s sewer rate page. The EPA puts the average American family’s home water use at about 300 gallons a day, or roughly 27,000 gallons a quarter. At that pace the combined water and sewer bill comes to about $458 a quarter, or $153 a month. The county bills sewer on the lower of your current or prior winter-quarter use, so the summer lawn-watering months do not raise it. Many Reston condominium fees include water and sewer, which takes this line off a condo owner’s budget entirely.
- Natural gas. Washington Gas put a temporary rate increase in place while the State Corporation Commission reviews its request, estimated at $7.87 a month for the average residential customer, according to the Fairfax County Times. Gas bills swing with the winter, and many Reston townhouses heat with electric heat pumps and carry no gas bill at all.
Electricity and water together put a typical household near $320 a month before gas. A smaller household in a newer, tighter home will run well below that. Ask the seller for twelve months of electric and gas bills, which most will share.
Budget from the resale packet, not from the median
The medians above describe the middle of each market. The home you buy will have its own numbers, and Virginia law puts most of them in writing before closing:
- Get the association figures from the resale packet. Virginia requires sellers in an association to deliver a resale disclosure packet, and you can cancel within the review period if something in it changes your mind. The packet shows the exact RA, cluster or condo fee, any special assessment, and any open violations.
- Use the county assessment for taxes. Look up the address, multiply the assessed value by 1.1995 percent, and add the refuse charge if it applies.
- Price the mortgage at more than one rate. The difference between 7 and 7.5 percent on a $540,000 loan is about $183 a month.
- Ask about RA membership by address, especially for newer condos and townhouses near the Metro stations.
- Get an insurance quote before the inspection period ends, particularly on older homes with original roofs or electrical panels.
We sell homes across Reston and Herndon every week, and we read every resale packet with our buyers before the review period runs out. If you want the carrying cost for a specific street, cluster or building, reach out and we will pull the numbers. You can also browse current townhomes, single-family homes and condos for sale in Reston.
See something missing or wrong? Email us at [email protected] and we will check it and update the post.
