If all 3,500 MCI Inc. jobs in Ashburn were to disappear as a result of the recently announced purchase by Verizon Communications Inc., it could be very sad for the workers.
But it would be only a "blip on the radar screen" for the ultra-hot housing market in Loudoun County, say residential real estate agents and home builders reacting to word this week of Verizon's intention to purchase the telecom company. Although the merger is likely to result in thousands of layoffs, it is unclear how many if any would be in Ashburn.
MCI Inc. employs about 3,500 people at its campus in Ashburn. Laid-off workers would find new jobs quickly, Loudoun County real estate brokers say.
(Chris Kleponis -- Bloomberg News)
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"MCI is a major employer in Loudoun County, so if they were to completely fold up, it would have a short-term impact," said Richard D. Entsminger, an executive at Elm Street Development and president of the Loudoun chapter of the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association. "But there is such a supply and demand imbalance right now [for housing] . . . that even if you lost a bit on the demand side, it would hardly be noticeable."
The housing market is so tight in the fastest-growing county in the nation, said Christine L. Cormack of Keller Williams Realty in Ashburn, that the average house is on the market for about 10 days. "And if they're in good condition and on a good lot they don't last through the weekend."
The median sale price for housing in Loudoun County jumped from $332,500 in January 2004 to $419,900 last month. The average price of a single-family house in Loudoun in September 2004 was $579,940, compared with $479,898 a year earlier, according to county numbers.
Cormack said the average price in her office for a relatively new, single-family four-bedroom house is $640,000.
Builders and agents also say the job market is so strong that any employees who receive pink slips would quickly be absorbed by other companies.
"I haven't read the stories about the sale to Verizon," said Scott Plein of Equinox Investments LLC, president of the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association.
"I would speculate that, first, we're not going to lose 3,500 jobs at the same time, and second, that . . . if a campus like MCI's came on the market, it would fill back up again very quickly because space is in such demand," Plein said. "That building is probably underutilized, so we would probably see a net increase in jobs."
"We frankly don't worry about all that [layoff] stuff because of all the job growth," said Dennis Bruce, manager of Long & Foster Real Estate Inc.'s Ashburn office. "We've got about 6,000 new jobs coming here this year and 80,000 for the region. When AOL had their layoffs a few years back, during the dot-bomb, pretty much all those people were reemployed. It didn't affect our market at all."
Verizon, the nation's largest phone company, announced Monday that it has agreed to pay $6.75 billion for MCI. If the deal is approved by MCI shareholders and federal and state regulators, Verizon expects to cut 7,000 jobs from a merged workforce of about 250,000.
The companies have declined to say how many people in the Washington region would be affected. MCI has already cut its workforce significantly in its slide from the boom years; at one time it employed 10,000 people in the region.
The news of the deal has some real estate sales offices chattering, both about the possibility that much-sought-after housing inventory could be coming on the market and about an even more intriguing rumor that Verizon could move a new operations center to MCI's Ashburn campus. A relocation would bring even more buyers.
Verizon is looking at sites for a new operations center with "significantly more than 1,000 employees," Verizon spokesman Peter Thonis said. The company has acknowledged that New Jersey and Virginia are among possible sites, he said. He would not comment on reports that the company has looked around Arlington.
