Great Falls from the overlook· Great Falls, Fairfax County
Artist's renderings of real Great Falls places.
Northern Virginia Guide › Fairfax County › Great Falls
Updated October 2, 2026Bright MLS, closed January 1 to October 2, 20261
Quick answer
The median single-family home sold for $1,885,000 in 2026, went under contract in ten days, and one in four buyers did not need a mortgage. Townhouses: none.
What a house actually costs in Great Falls this year, how buyers pay, what it rents for, which school it feeds, what septic and well mean on moving day, and how long the drive is. Every number below is from Bright MLS closed sales, pulled on October 2, 2026, not from a listing site's estimate.
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Six numbers that describe Great Falls.
★ Closed sales, January 1 to October 2, 20261
Single-family means a detached house with at least three bedrooms and two full baths, which is what a buyer searching Great Falls is looking at. Townhouse means end-of-row and interior-row homes. Condos are not included. Source: Bright MLS, closed sales January 1 to October 2, 2026, Postal City = Great Falls, pulled by Ahmed Makkiyah on October 2, 2026.
For owners
What is my home worth in Great Falls?
Closed sales, January 1 to October 2, 20261
In 2026 the median Great Falls house sold for $1,885,000, and no townhouses sold. A median is the middle sale, not the price of your home: in Great Falls the acreage, the well and septic system, and the condition of the house can move the number a long way. A written valuation from Ahmed starts with the closed sales nearest your address, checked by hand.
Why people choose Great Falls
An acre instead of a train station.
Land and privacy within half an hour of the Beltway, room for horses, houses of 7,000 square feet, and a bigger lot than McLean.
Buyers choose Great Falls over McLean for the acre and the quiet, and over Loudoun for Langley and the shorter drive. They pay for it with Georgetown Pike at 8 am and a septic inspection. The usual next move from the acre is a Tysons condo or a McLean house near the Silver Line.
Prices
What the $1.885 million median buys, and what the range looks like.
Great Falls' cheapest single-family sale of 2026 was $800,000 and its most expensive was $12 million. The median, $1,885,000, is $415,000 below McLean's and $120 less a square foot, for roughly twice the land.
The typical 2026 sale was a colonial of 5,000 to 7,000 square feet built between 1980 and 2000 on two acres off Georgetown Pike, Beach Mill Road, Leigh Mill Road or Springvale Road, sold between $1.5 million and $2.5 million. Below $1.5 million (41 sales this year) you are buying a 1960s or 70s house to renovate, or a lot with a house on it. Between $1.5 and $3 million (75 sales) is the heart of the market. Above $3 million (23 sales) the houses are custom estates with a pool, a barn or a view of the river, and that is where the average ($2.24 million) comes from.
There is no townhouse market to describe. Zero sold and zero rented in 2026, because Great Falls is zoned for large residential lots, most streets have no public sewer, and the stock was never built. The nearest townhomes are in McLean ($1,100,000 median this year) and Reston.
At a median $505 per square foot, Great Falls is cheaper per foot than McLean ($625) and dearer than the county ($457 in September 2026). You pay for the house; the acre comes with it.
Median single-family sale price, 20262
McLean $2,300,000; Great Falls $1,885,000; City of Falls Church (independent city) $1,685,000; Vienna $1,453,000; Oakton $1,420,000; Arlington County, all zips, $1,406,000; City of Alexandria (independent city) $1,350,000; Fairfax Station $1,245,000; Reston $1,120,000; Clifton $1,100,000; Falls Church addresses in Fairfax County $1,055,000; Fairfax addresses in Fairfax County $985,000; Fairfax County in September $950,000; Lorton $930,000; Annandale $925,000; Burke $925,000; Chantilly addresses in Fairfax County $923,650; Centreville $904,500; Alexandria addresses in Fairfax County $885,000; Herndon $879,000; Springfield $828,857; City of Fairfax (independent city) $820,000.
Bright MLS closed sales, January 1 to October 2, 2026 (City of Alexandria to October 3), except the Fairfax County row (September 2026 alone). The town rows are filtered to 3+ bedrooms and 2+ full baths and leave out homes legally owned as condos (including condo-style townhouses); the Fairfax County row has no size filter. Fairfax, Alexandria and Falls Church mean the Fairfax County addresses, not the independent cities, and Chantilly means its Fairfax County side. Arlington County, the neighbor to the east, is one row for the whole county (pulled October 3, same filters). The Cities of Fairfax, Falls Church and Alexandria are independent cities next to the county, shown under their own names. Oak Hill (20 sales) and Dunn Loring (12) are too small to chart.
Townhouse view: each place's median townhouse sale price and number of townhouse sales (end-of-row and interior-row townhouses, condo-owned homes left out), from the same Bright MLS searches as each place's own page, closed January 1 to October 2, 2026 (Arlington County and the City of Alexandria to October 3). A gray bar means fewer than 10 townhouses sold, too few to give a median. The Fairfax County, September row is left out of this view: there is no townhouse figure for that month alone.
| Measure | Great Falls | McLean, for comparison |
|---|---|---|
| Homes sold | 139 | 335 |
| Median sold price | $1,885,000 | $2,300,000 |
| Average sold price | $2,240,018 | $2,647,943 |
| Median price per square foot | $505 | $625 |
| Median days to contract | 10 | 7 |
| Median sale price as a share of the asking price (sold-to-list) | 99.3% | 99.0% |
| Lowest sale | $800,000 | $925,000 |
| Highest sale | $12,000,000 | $13,500,000 |
| Total dollar volume | $311.4M | $887.1M |
| Townhouses sold | 0 | 49 |
Great Falls single-family home prices since 2019
Median- 2019: $1,125,000 median, 203 sales
- 2020: $1,199,900 median, 245 sales
- 2021: $1,449,750 median, 258 sales
- 2022: $1,587,500 median, 200 sales
- 2023: $1,605,000 median, 158 sales
- 2024: $1,750,161 median, 144 sales
- 2025: $1,625,000 median, 145 sales
- 2026: $1,885,000 median, 139 sales
Median sale price of Great Falls single-family homes (3+ bedrooms, 2+ full baths), January 1 to October 2 each year, 2019 to 2026. Source: Bright MLS closed sales pulled by Ahmed Makkiyah, October 2026. Single-family homes and townhouses only; no condos.
Lowest and highest sales, 2026
A guide, not a price tag. The median is the middle sale: half the homes sold for more and half for less. It gives you a feel for prices here, not the price of any one home, and you'll always find homes above and below it, like the lowest and highest sales below.
Great Falls closed single-family sales, January 1 to October 2, 2026 (Bright MLS). Single-family means 3+ bedrooms and 2+ full baths; condo-owned homes, including townhouses sold as condominiums, are not counted.
- LowestCheapest single-family house$800,000lowest of 139 single-family sales, January 1 to October 2, 2026
- HighestHighest single-family house$12,000,000highest of 139 single-family sales, January 1 to October 2, 2026
- TownhousesCheapest and highest townhouseNo townhouse sales in 20260 sold, January 1 to October 2, 2026
What can you afford in Great Falls? Start from the monthly payment you can live with, not the price. The calculator adds Fairfax County tax and insurance for you; there is usually no HOA out here.
Follow the money
Above $3 million, more than half of Great Falls buyers pay cash.
In 2026, 37 of 139 single-family sales closed without a mortgage, and those buyers spent $106 million, 34% of every dollar that changed hands, mostly on the biggest houses.
Share of single-family sales paid in cash, by price range, 2026
Under $1.5 million 17% (7 of 41); $1.5 to $2 million 17% (7 of 41); $2 to $3 million 29% (10 of 34); $3 to $5 million 56% (9 of 16); over $5 million 57% (4 of 7).
Unlike McLean, there is no cash spike at the bottom. Nobody is buying two acres to tear down the house; the cash is in the estates.
How 139 single-family purchases were paid for, 2026
139 sales: cash 37 · conventional 88 · VA 9 · other 5
Cash buyers bought bigger: a median of $2,500,000 against $1,685,000 for financed buyers. They closed a little faster, 9 days against 10.5, and they negotiated harder, paying 97.1% of asking where financed buyers paid the full price. The year's top sale, $12 million for a 16,550-square-foot house, was cash at full asking price after one day on the market.
What that means if you need a loan: under $3 million, about four out of five Great Falls buyers are financing too, so a mortgage is not the handicap it is in McLean. Where it matters is the estate market, and there the seller will take a clean cash contract over a higher financed one. In either band, the paperwork that wins is a full pre-approval and a lender who has closed on septic and well before.
"Other" financing here combines 2 adjustable-rate loans, 1 private loan and 2 sales that Bright MLS marks only as "other". Two outliers, a $2.11 million cash sale on a $1.5 million list and a $1.33 million private sale with no days on market, do not move the medians.
The interesting fact
Not one townhouse was sold or rented in Great Falls in 2026.
That is the number that separates Great Falls from every other town in Fairfax County, and it decides what kind of home you can buy here.
Why. Great Falls is zoned almost entirely for residential estate and one-acre lots, and most of it is outside the county's sewer service area, so every house needs its own septic field. Townhomes need sewer and density. Neither exists here, and the planning rules are written to keep it that way.
What it means for buyers. The entry ticket is a detached house, and in 2026 the cheapest one was $800,000. A buyer who wants Langley High School at a townhouse price looks at McLean, where 49 townhomes sold this year at a median of $1,100,000, or at Reston and Herndon, which feed other high schools.
What it means for renters. You rent a house or you do not rent in Great Falls. Forty-three houses leased this year, the median at $5,250 a month and the cheapest at $3,200, and they took a month to lease, so there is time to negotiate.
Rent or buy
By the math, Great Falls is a place you rent. People buy the acre anyway.
A single-family home rents for a median of $5,250 a month and sells for $1.885 million, a price-to-rent ratio of 29.9, well above 20, the level above which renting usually comes out cheaper.1
| Measure | Great Falls | McLean, for comparison |
|---|---|---|
| Homes rented | 43 | 164 |
| Median monthly rent | $5,250 | $6,000 |
| Average monthly rent | $6,021 | $6,781 |
| Median rent per square foot | $1.95 | $2.36 |
| Median days to lease | 29 | 20 |
| Rent range, lowest to highest lease | $3,200 to $15,000 | $3,200 to $30,000 |
| Townhomes rented | 0 | 91 |
Gross yield is before the mortgage, before the $21,700 a year in property tax, and before insurance, the generator and the lawn service, so a Great Falls house is not an income play. At $1.95 a square foot it is the cheapest rent per foot in this part of the county, which is why renting here for a two-year stay is better value than in McLean. Owners are buying the land, Langley, and the quiet.
Own in Great Falls already? Acreage is the hardest thing to value from a website, and the estimates miss by hundreds of thousands here. Ahmed runs a real comparative analysis against the 139 sales on this page.
The houses
Two acres, a long driveway, and your own water.
Great Falls is about 15,000 people on one- to five-acre lots along Georgetown Pike between McLean and the Loudoun line, with the Potomac and Great Falls Park as its northern edge.
The original stock. Colonials and contemporaries from the 1970s to the 1990s on two acres, 4,000 to 7,000 square feet, in Falcon Ridge, Lexington Estates, Seneca Ridge, Hickory Creek and along Beach Mill and Leigh Mill roads. Many have had one kitchen since they were built. These are the $1.5 million to $2.5 million houses.
The estates. Custom builds of 8,000 to 16,000 square feet with a pool house, a barn or river frontage, on Georgetown Pike, Innsbruck Avenue and the lanes down to the Potomac. These are the $3 million and up closings, and the only part of the market where cash is the rule.
The 1960s houses and lots. Below $1.5 million, 41 sales this year: ramblers and split-levels on an acre that need everything, bought to renovate in stages. Unlike McLean, builders are not bidding against you here, because the rebuild is a $4 million project with a two-year permit.
What to inspect. The septic system, separately from the house: capacity against bedroom count, the drainfield, and whether the county requires a certification on sale. The well: flow, pressure tank and a water test. The driveway and any private road maintenance agreement. Radon. The generator, because power lines here run through trees. And the plat, because the acre may include a stream buffer you cannot build on.
Schools
One high school, and it is Langley.
Every Great Falls address feeds Langley High School, ranked second of Fairfax County's 25 high schools on Niche's 2027 list and fourth in Virginia by US News, so there is no boundary question to ask here.3
Langley High School
Niche #2 in Fairfax County, US News #4 in Virginia for 2026-27. All of Great Falls, plus northern McLean. Great Falls students get there through Cooper Middle School.
Three elementaries
Forestville, Great Falls and Colvin Run. Great Falls Elementary runs the county's Japanese partial-immersion program, one of a handful in FCPS.
The private options
The Potomac School and Madeira (girls, day and boarding) are on Georgetown Pike at the McLean end; the Langley School is in McLean; Nysmith in Herndon is 15 minutes. Tuition runs $45,000 to $58,000 a year.
McLean Islamic Center and ADAMS
McLean Islamic Center on Jarrett Valley Drive is 15 minutes; the ADAMS Center in Sterling about 20. Al Fatih Academy in Reston is the nearest full-time Islamic school.
The January 2026 county boundary change moved students between McLean High and Langley but did not touch Great Falls. Confirm any address at the FCPS Boundary Locator anyway, and ask Ahmed to pull the assigned schools from the MLS record.
Commute
Forty minutes to downtown on a good day, and no train.
Great Falls has two roads out, Georgetown Pike and Route 7, and the nearest Metro station is a 15-to-20-minute drive, which is the price of the acre.
| To | Drive | Drive to Metro, then train | Route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Downtown DC (Farragut) | 40 to 60 min | 45 min | Georgetown Pike to the GW Parkway, or Route 7 to the Beltway; Silver Line from Wiehle-Reston East or Spring Hill |
| Pentagon | 35 to 50 min | 55 min | GW Parkway to I-395; Silver to Blue at Rosslyn |
| Tysons | 15 to 25 min | — | Route 7 or Georgetown Pike to Route 123 |
| Reston Town Center | 15 to 20 min | — | Route 7 to Reston Parkway |
| Dulles Airport | 25 to 30 min | — | Route 7 to Route 28 |
| Reagan National | 35 to 45 min | — | GW Parkway |
Georgetown Pike is two lanes, scenic and closes when a tree comes down; Route 7 is the alternative and is wider now that the widening to Reston is done. The 495 NEXT express lanes end at the GW Parkway, which helps the Beltway leg. Nobody in Great Falls walks to a train. The real test is to drive it on a Tuesday at 7:45. Ahmed will do that drive with you.
Daily life
A village crossroads, a national park, and your own well.
The village. Georgetown Pike at Walker Road: the Safeway, the Old Brogue, the Great Falls Grange and the Saturday farmers market. That is the town center. Everything else is in McLean, Tysons or Reston, 15 to 25 minutes.
Outdoors. Great Falls Park and Riverbend Park on the Potomac, Colvin Run Mill, the Cross County Trail's northern start, and the bridle paths, because this is still horse country with stables on Beach Mill and Springvale roads.
Halal and Middle Eastern. Zamarod, the Afghan restaurant in the village, is halal. For everything else, McLean, Tysons and Vienna are 15 minutes: Divan and Aracosia in McLean, Agora and Joon in Tysons, Yas Bakery and the new Mashahweez shawarma in Vienna. The full top-five-per-cuisine list is on the McLean page.
Water, sewer, power. Most homes are on a well and a septic field. The county requires some septic systems to be certified on sale, the well gets tested, and a whole-house generator is the common upgrade because outages come with the trees. Budget for pumping the tank every three to five years.
Hospitals and airports. Reston Hospital Center is 15 minutes; Inova Fairfax, the region's Level I trauma center, about 25. Dulles is 25 to 30 minutes; Reagan National 35 to 45.
Taxes.4 Great Falls is unincorporated, so there is no town tax and no community-center district: the 2026 county rate is $1.12 per $100 of assessed value plus about $0.034 in county fees, about $1.15 all in. On a $1.885 million house that is roughly $21,700 a year. The car tax is $4.57 per $100 of each vehicle's value.
How Great Falls rates
How Great Falls rates: quiet, walkable, transit and more, from 0 to 10.
Each score ranks Great Falls among the 46 towns in this guide: 10 is the top of the list, 0 the bottom. It is not a national score. The real number and its source sit under each one.
98% of the land is under 50 dB of 24-hour road, rail and plane noise; 1% is at 60 dB or more. Check your street’s noise
US DOT National Transportation Noise Map, 2020 (road, rail and aviation)
6.5 of 20 on the EPA walkability index; 7 everyday shops and pharmacies mapped.
EPA National Walkability Index, version 3.0 (2021)
0 bus stops within half a mile of the average home; 0% of people live within 1 mile of a Metro or VRE station.
OpenStreetMap, map data of October 20, 2026, plus Fairfax Connector, Loudoun County Transit and OmniRide schedules; homes = 2020 Census neighborhoods (block groups)
0.3 miles of bike lanes and bike trails (0.0 per square mile); no Capital Bikeshare stations.
OpenStreetMap, map data of October 20, 2026; Capital Bikeshare station feed
3.5 restaurants, bars, music venues, theaters and cinemas within 1 mile of the average home (38 inside the town).
Overture Maps places, October 2026 release (open places only); homes = 2020 Census neighborhoods (block groups)
1.2 grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware and everyday shops within 1 mile of the average home; 8% of people live within 1 mile of a grocery store.
Overture Maps places, October 2026 release (open places only); homes = 2020 Census neighborhoods (block groups)
58% of people live within half a mile of a park; 1,156 acres of parks and nature preserves, 7% of the land.
OpenStreetMap, map data of October 20, 2026
The area is ZIP code 22066 as the Census Bureau maps it (25.58 square miles). We rate places, never people, so there is no school, safety or “who lives here” score. Map counts are what the sources have mapped and can miss a place. Scored October 22, 2026; updated every six months.
Questions
What people ask about Great Falls.
How much does a house cost in Great Falls, Virginia in 2026?
The median single-family home (3+ bedrooms, 2+ full baths) sold for $1,885,000 in 2026 through October 2, across 139 sales in Bright MLS, at a median of $505 per square foot. Sales ran from $800,000 (the lowest) to $12 million (the highest). The average, $2,240,018, is pulled up by the estates.
What was the cheapest home sold in Great Falls, Virginia in 2026?
Bright MLS closed sales from January 1 to October 2, 2026, single-family houses (3+ bedrooms, 2+ full baths) and townhouses only, no condos:
- Cheapest single-family house: $800,000, the lowest of 139 single-family sales
- Townhouses: none sold in 2026
- Highest single-family house: $12,000,000, the highest of 139 single-family sales
Want a home near these prices? Ask Ahmed, or call or text 734.383.6945 or 703.957.0060.
Is the median price what a home in Great Falls will cost?
No. The median is the middle sale of 2026, not a set price: half the single-family houses sold for more and half for less. In Great Falls they sold from $800,000 to $12,000,000. Use the median to get a feel for the market, then look at homes on both sides of it.
Are there townhouses in Great Falls, Virginia?
Essentially none. Not a single townhouse was sold or rented in Great Falls in 2026. The community is zoned for large residential lots, most streets have no public sewer, and the housing stock is detached houses on one to five acres. Buyers who want a townhome near Langley High School look in McLean, where the 2026 median townhouse was $1,100,000, or in Reston and Herndon.
What percentage of Great Falls home buyers pay cash?
About 27%: 37 of 139 single-family sales in 2026 closed without a mortgage, and those buyers spent 34% of all the money. Cash is concentrated at the top: 56% of buyers between $3 million and $5 million and 57% above $5 million paid cash, against 17% under $2 million. The year's top sale, $12 million, was cash at full asking price after one day on the market.
What is rent in Great Falls, Virginia?
In 2026 the median single-family rental (3+ bedrooms) leased for $5,250 a month across 43 closed leases in Bright MLS, taking a median of 29 days to lease. Rents ran from $3,200 to $15,000 (lowest to highest lease). No townhouses were rented, so renting in Great Falls means renting a house.
Is it better to rent or buy in Great Falls?
By the numbers, renting is cheaper: the price-to-rent ratio is 29.9 ($1,885,000 against $63,000 a year in rent), well above 20, the level above which renting usually wins, and gross rental yield is 3.3%. People buy in Great Falls for the land, the privacy and Langley High School, not for monthly savings.
Which schools serve Great Falls?
All of Great Falls feeds Langley High School, rated A+ by Niche and ranked second in Fairfax County for 2027 and fourth in Virginia by US News, through Cooper Middle School and Forestville, Great Falls and Colvin Run elementary schools. Great Falls Elementary runs Fairfax County's Japanese immersion program. The Potomac School and Madeira are on Georgetown Pike at the McLean end.
How long is the commute from Great Falls to Washington, DC?
About 40 to 60 minutes by car at 8 am via Georgetown Pike and the GW Parkway, or Route 7 to the Beltway. There is no rail: the nearest Metro stations are Wiehle-Reston East and Spring Hill in Tysons, each 15 to 20 minutes away, then about 25 minutes to downtown on the Silver Line. Tysons is 15 to 25 minutes and Dulles Airport 25 to 30.
What should I know about septic, wells and taxes in Great Falls?
Most Great Falls homes are on a private septic system and a well. Get a separate septic inspection, confirm the system's capacity matches the bedroom count, and test the well water. Great Falls is unincorporated Fairfax County, so the 2026 tax is $1.12 per $100 of assessed value plus about $0.034 in county fees, with no community-center district: roughly $21,700 a year on a $1.885 million house.
Your next step
Buying or selling in Great Falls?
Thinking about buying in Great Falls?
Start with what homes here really sold for, then the tax and the monthly payment.
Own a home in Great Falls?
A median is the middle sale, not the price of your home. The lot, the condition and the street can put yours well above or below it.
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Tell me what you are looking for in Great Falls.
Buying, selling or just deciding between Great Falls and McLean. Send the situation and get the numbers back, in English or Arabic, not a pitch.
For owners
What's my Great Falls home worth?
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