You've seen the number. Reston's median sale price has been sitting in the high $500Ks to low $600Ks through most of 2026, and a similar house a few minutes away in Herndon might list for less, or more, depending on the week. If you're comparing the two towns purely on sticker price, you're missing the part of the equation that never shows up in a portal's monthly payment estimate: what you're required to pay on top of the mortgage, and to whom.
That gap is not cosmetic. It comes from how Reston was built.
The deed that never expires
Reston was created in the 1960s as a planned community, and the legal document that made it possible, the Deed of Dedication, still governs nearly every residential lot inside the Master Plan boundaries. The shorthand Reston Association uses is that the deed "runs with the land." In practice, that means anyone who buys a home subject to the deed automatically becomes a member of Reston Association and automatically owes its annual assessment. There is no opting out because you'd rather skip the pools, and there is no negotiating it away at closing. It's baked into ownership itself, the way property taxes are baked into ownership of any home in Virginia.
For 2026, that assessment is $890 per property, a 5% increase the Reston Association board approved on November 13, 2025, as part of a $24 million annual budget. Homeowners who qualify for the Fairfax County Tax Relief Program, based on age, disability, or income, pay a reduced $445.
The increase wasn't quiet. Board staff had initially floated a much steeper jump to $923, an 8.8% increase, to fund a five-year push toward higher capital spending. The board pulled that number down by cutting $175,000 from the pool budget instead, which meant fewer operating hours at some of Reston's fifteen pools this year. One board member who opposed the tradeoff put the stakes plainly: "Our members value our swimming pools more than any other single feature after our trails." The board still approved the lower assessment on a 7-2 vote. Staff have also projected the assessment climbing toward roughly $1,092 by 2030 if the current capital funding plan holds.
The point isn't the pool schedule. It's that Reston's mandatory fee is set through an actual public governance process, with a board, competing priorities, and members who show up to argue about it, the same way a town council sets a tax rate. That's a different animal from a typical HOA quietly raising dues by a few dollars a year.
The fee most buyers don't see coming
The $890 is only the base layer. Reston Association's own materials describe roughly 165 sub-associations sitting inside its boundaries: about 135 cluster associations and 30 condominium associations. These are separate legal entities with their own boards, budgets, and dues, and they exist because a large share of Reston's housing stock, especially townhome clusters and condo buildings, was built with shared driveways, common landscaping, or shared building systems that RA itself doesn't maintain.
If your future home sits in one of those clusters, you pay both bills. Soapstone Cluster, for example, carries an annual assessment of $1,880, which works out to roughly $157 a month. Add that to the $890 RA assessment, or about $74 a month, and a buyer in that cluster is carrying close to $231 a month in association costs before a single dollar goes toward a condo fee, if one applies on top of that.
Compare that to a detached single-family home on a lot that was never platted into a cluster. Reston Association's own materials note that the large majority of detached single-family homes fall outside the cluster system entirely, so their only obligation is the base RA assessment. Same town, same association, and a cost difference that can run well over $1,000 a year depending purely on which kind of lot you buy.
Here's how that stacks up in plain numbers:
| Property type | Reston Association (2026) | Typical additional layer | Approximate combined annual cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detached single-family, no cluster | $890 | None | $890 |
| Cluster home, Soapstone Cluster example | $890 | $1,880 cluster assessment | $2,770 |
| Condo inside RA boundary | $890 | Condo fee, varies by building | $890 plus condo fee |
There's also a one-time cost that catches people off guard at the closing table. Under the deed, a purchaser owes RA a transfer fee at settlement, set at $374 for 2026. It's not an annual charge and it's not optional, but it's the kind of line item a buyer sees for the first time on their settlement statement rather than on the listing sheet.
Why Herndon looks different on paper
Herndon sits right next door along the Dulles corridor, and it's tempting to treat the two towns as interchangeable when you're comparing median prices. Structurally, they aren't. Herndon is an incorporated town, one of only three in Fairfax County, which means it governs itself through its own municipal zoning and permitting rather than through a private community association. There is no Herndon equivalent of the Reston Deed obligating every homeowner into a single master association.
That doesn't mean Herndon has no HOAs. Many individual neighborhoods there have their own associations with their own dues. But existence and cost vary property by property rather than applying uniformly across the town, and it shows up in how homes get marketed. It's common to see Herndon listings advertise "no HOA" as a selling point, something you'd almost never see attached to a Reston listing, because in Reston it usually isn't true.
None of this makes one town a better buy than the other. A buyer who wants shared trails, four lakes, fifteen pools, and a maintained architectural standard across the whole community is paying for infrastructure that Herndon simply doesn't centralize in the same way. A buyer who wants to skip that layer of cost and governance may find more of that flexibility in Herndon, property by property. The point is that the median price alone tells you nothing about which situation you're walking into.
Turning this into a real comparison
Before you compare a Reston listing to anything else, or before you compare two Reston listings to each other, get specific about the fee stack:
- Confirm through the resale disclosure package whether the parcel is inside RA boundaries and whether it belongs to a cluster or condo association. Virginia's Property Owners' Association Act requires sellers to provide this packet, and it will show current dues for every layer that applies.
- Ask what the cluster or condo association's budget and reserve study show, not just this year's due amount. Virginia law requires associations to make annual budgets available and to review reserves regularly, and a thin reserve fund is often the leading indicator of a special assessment down the road.
- Add the RA assessment, any cluster due, and any condo fee together and divide by twelve. That monthly figure, not the sale price, is the number that belongs next to your mortgage estimate.
- If you're comparing against Herndon or another nearby town, confirm whether that comparable property has an HOA at all, and if so, what it actually costs. A price advantage on paper can shrink or disappear once both cost stacks are on the table.
A few questions worth asking directly
Does every home in Reston pay the Reston Association assessment? Nearly all residential property subject to the Reston Deed does, since membership is automatic rather than elective. A small number of parcels fall outside those boundaries, so confirm status through the resale disclosure package rather than assuming.
What is the transfer fee, and is it separate from the annual assessment? Yes. The $374 transfer fee for 2026 is a one-time charge due at settlement, distinct from the recurring annual assessment.
If I buy a detached single-family home, do I still owe cluster dues? Most detached single-family lots in Reston sit outside the cluster system, so their obligation is limited to the base RA assessment. Some detached homes are part of a cluster, so it's worth confirming for any specific address rather than assuming based on home type alone.
Let's run the real numbers on your shortlist
Comparing a Reston address to a Herndon address, or comparing two Reston clusters to each other, takes more than a glance at list price. If you're weighing a move across Northern Virginia and want someone to pull the actual disclosure packages, tally the true monthly carrying cost, and walk you through what each fee is buying, Katie Wojtowicz Homes can help you compare with real numbers instead of assumptions. Let's Connect.
