Long & Foster reports sales of $15.5 billion

Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. reported that 2000 was the best year in company history, with sales of $15.5 billion, a 17 percent increase over 1999.

The Fairfax, Va.-based company, fourth-largest in the nation, said it sold 79,203 properties in the mid-Atlantic region.

"It was an exceptional year for the real estate industry," said P. Wesley Foster Jr., president of Long & Foster.

"Real estate brokerage firms have never before experienced a market condition marked by such high activity and scarcity of inventory."

Eight of Long & Foster's nine regions posted increases last year. The Baltimore/Southern Pennsylvania region, buoyed by the September acquisition of Grempler Realty Inc., recorded a 42 percent gain on $3 billion in sales.

The top sales offices in the Baltimore area, ranked by year-end sales volume, were Annapolis, with $238 million; Columbia, $208 million; Timonium, $184 million; Greenspring, $178 million; and Ellicott City, $163 million.