A buyer comparing a $625,000 townhome in Reston to a $650,000 one in Herndon this fall will look at two numbers that sit close enough together to feel like a wash. Then the first full year of ownership arrives, and the two houses stop looking like siblings. One owner is writing a check to a private association whose name is stamped into the deed. The other is watching a single line on a county tax bill do work that, a few miles east, gets split across two or three separate invoices.
Neither town is more expensive to own in, exactly. They just collect the money in almost opposite ways, and that difference never shows up in the number most people compare first.
The Number That Looks the Same
As of August 31, 2026, Zillow's home value index put the typical Reston home at $624,958, up 0.3 percent over the past year. The same index for Herndon that month showed $678,085, down 0.5 percent year over year. Fifty-three thousand dollars apart on otherwise comparable suburban stock, moving in opposite directions, in the same market, at the same moment. If you stopped there, you'd conclude the two towns are close cousins with slightly different price tags.
You'd be missing the part of the transaction that actually determines what owning the home costs you every year after closing.
Why Your Reston Deed Has a Silent Co-Signer
Reston is not a town in the legal sense. It has no mayor, no town council, no independent taxing authority. It's an unincorporated part of Fairfax County, which means the county handles police, schools, and roads the same way it does for any other unincorporated neighborhood. But Reston also has something almost no other unincorporated community in the county has: a private nonprofit, Reston Association, that functions like a shadow town government for anything related to parks, pools, and pathways.
Membership isn't a choice you make at closing. It's attached to the lot by the community's founding deed, and every buyer inherits it the moment they take title, the same way they inherit the roof and the driveway. Reston Association's board sets a new annual assessment every November, and for 2026 that number is $890, up 5 percent from $848 in 2025. Members who qualify for the Fairfax County Tax Relief Program based on age or disability pay $445 instead. The fee funds 15 pools, 54 tennis courts, 55 miles of paved pathways, more than 1,300 acres of open space, four lakes and three ponds, and a 72-acre nature center, along with ballfields, playgrounds, and garden plots members can rent by the season.
The deed's language on what happens if you'd rather skip all that is direct: no owner can escape the assessment simply by not using the pool. The moment the board sets the fee, it becomes a continuing lien on the property, meaning it has to be cleared before a sale can close, the same as a mortgage or an unpaid tax bill.
| Reston | Herndon | |
|---|---|---|
| Governance | Unincorporated Fairfax County | One of three incorporated towns in Fairfax County |
| Mandatory community fee | Reston Association assessment | None townwide |
| 2026 rate | $890/year ($445 with county tax relief) | N/A |
| What it funds | Pools, tennis courts, pathways, lakes, nature center | Municipal services, town parks, aquatic center |
| Added tax layer | Reston Community Center special district ($0.047/$100 assessed) | Town real estate tax ($0.27/$100 assessed) |
| Billed how | Separate annual invoice, due Jan. 1 | Combined onto the county real estate tax bill |
| Subdivision-level fees | Common, layered on top (160+ sub-associations) | Varies by subdivision, not universal |
The Layer Most Listings Don't Mention
Reston Association's fee is only the base layer. The community includes more than 160 sub-associations, which means a given lot might carry just the Reston Association assessment, or that fee plus a separate cluster or condominium charge on top. One example: Soapstone Cluster's 2026 annual assessment runs $1,880, which combined with the base Reston Association fee puts a buyer at roughly $2,770 a year before any master condo fee gets added. Two homes listed at the same price, in the same town, can carry meaningfully different carrying costs depending purely on which of those 160-plus clusters the lot happens to sit in.
Virginia's Property Owners' Association Act requires a seller to hand over a resale disclosure packet from Reston Association before closing, and a second one from the cluster or condo association if the home belongs to one. By law, Reston Association has 14 days from payment to deliver its packet, so this isn't a same-day request. There's also a one-time transfer fee of $374, paid at settlement under the community's founding deed, that funds the association's general operations rather than any specific amenity.
None of this makes Reston a bad deal. It means the fee a buyer sees advertised on a listing is rarely the full number, and finding the full number takes a specific document request, not a glance at the MLS sheet.
Herndon Trades the Association for a Tax Bill
Herndon takes the opposite approach. It's one of only three incorporated towns in Fairfax County, alongside Clifton and Vienna, which means it has its own elected mayor and town council setting its own budget and its own real estate tax rate, layered on top of the county rate that every Fairfax property pays. The town raised that rate to 27 cents per $100 of assessed value for fiscal year 2026, its first real estate tax increase since 2011, and the rate has carried unchanged into the current fiscal year, 2027. On the average assessed home in town, Herndon's own budget documents calculated that the one-cent increase added about $56 a year, or roughly $4.70 a month, to the tax bill.
Since 2022, Fairfax County's tax office has collected that town levy together with the county's own real estate tax, so Herndon owners aren't juggling two separate bills the way a Reston buyer might juggle an association invoice and a cluster invoice. It shows up as one combined number on one county tax notice.
What Herndon does not have is a townwide equivalent to Reston Association. Whether a given Herndon address carries HOA dues depends entirely on the specific subdivision. Fox Mill Estates, a neighborhood of more than a thousand homes on quarter- to half-acre lots, has its own homeowners association and its own fees. Plenty of other Herndon neighborhoods don't carry any HOA at all. There's no single number to ask for the way there is with Reston Association. There's a question to ask about one specific subdivision at a time.
What This Means If You're Comparing the Two Towns
The honest way to compare a Reston listing to a Herndon listing isn't to compare list prices. It's to build out the full annual bill for each one before deciding which number actually wins.
- For a Reston listing: Start with the $890 base assessment, then ask the listing agent whether the property belongs to a cluster or condo association and request that association's current dues alongside the Reston Association resale disclosure packet. Add the two together. That combined figure, not the base assessment alone, is what belongs in a monthly budget.
- For a Herndon listing: Pull the current county-and-town combined tax rate off the assessment notice, then ask specifically whether that subdivision has its own homeowners association. Some do, some don't, and the listing sheet won't always spell it out clearly.
Reston's model bundles amenities and maintenance into a private, lien-backed fee that isn't tax deductible but buys direct access to a specific, named set of pools and trails. Herndon's model runs the added cost through a public tax rate that is deductible under the usual property tax rules but doesn't buy any particular amenity beyond whatever the town budget funds that year. Neither structure is better on its face. They just answer very different questions about where your money goes and what it's guaranteed to pay for.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Compare Listings
Does the Reston Association fee ever go away if I sell? No. It attaches to the lot through the community's deed of dedication, and the next buyer inherits it at settlement the same way you did.
Do all Herndon neighborhoods have an HOA? No. Coverage varies subdivision by subdivision. Fox Mill Estates has one; plenty of other Herndon neighborhoods don't carry any homeowners association at all.
Will I get a separate bill for Herndon's town tax? No. Since 2022, Fairfax County's Department of Tax Administration collects the town's real estate tax together with the county tax on one combined notice.
If you're weighing a move between Reston and Herndon, or trying to figure out what a specific address will actually cost you past the closing table, Marnie Schaar & Associates can walk through the real numbers on any listing you're considering. Request a complimentary home valuation and we'll help you see past the price tag to what you'd actually be signing up for.