Homeowners in New York and Virginia thrilled at the prospect of surging property values in the wake of Amazon’s HQ2 announcement last November could not have predicted how their fortunes would diverge one year later.

This time last year, the retail giant announced it would split its second headquarters between two urban industrial sites in Long Island City, Queens, and Crystal City, Virginia, bringing 25,000 jobs and the promise of economic stimulus. Overnight, the news unleashed a deluge of speculative house hunting and price increases in the two neighborhoods, as buyers and sellers rushed to capitalize on Amazon’s future presence.

That was until Amazon’s about-face in February, when the company announced it would abandon its plans in Long Island City amid wrangling with local politicians who opposed large tax breaks promised to the tech giant. Since then, the two housing markets that once rose in sync have departed: one is a seller’s market where bidding wars and quick sales are the norm, and the other a buyer’s market flush with inventory and greater negotiability.

Welcome to National Landing

Abundant optimism continues to fuel the market in Amazon’s new Virginia ZIP Code, which goes by a spiffy new name, National Landing. In October, the median home in the 22202 ZIP Code closed in just eight days and for nearly $300,000 more than it did a year ago, according to data from Bright MLS, Inc., the regional multiple listing service.

“What that means is you’re listing the home on a Thursday, holding an open house on Saturday, reviewing a contract on Monday and in contract by Tuesday,” said Jordan Stuart , a listing agent with Keller Williams Capital Properties, located in the Washington, D.C., area.

One such speedy deal was a studio apartment in National Landing that Mr. Stuart marketed twice in the past four years with vastly different results. Back in 2015, “I had a lot of problems with this listing because it was in this awkward part of Arlington that didn’t have an identity,” Mr. Stuart said, referring to the area now known as National Landing.

In late May, a new owner hired Mr. Stuart to market the unit again and it received “seven or eight” offers in the first weekend, he said. “It was the complete opposite experience. People were lining up for this open house,” he said.

After fielding competing bids, the home went into contract in a matter of days and closed for over $100,000 more than the owner paid in 2015—a 45% return on investment, property records show.

Very limited housing stock in National Landing has helped propel the white-hot pace of sales. At the moment, there are little more than two dozen homes listed for sale in the ZIP Code, according to Zillow.

Many homeowners there have put off selling under the expectation that property values will climb significantly higher when Amazon and its first tranche of employees officially move into the area next year, said Chris Finnegan , vice president of marketing at Bright MLS, the regional multiple listing service.

“Once the announcement was made, people started holding onto their properties,” Mr. Finnegan said. “They were thinking ‘This is a lottery that we’re sitting on and we’re just going to see how it goes.’”

Those folks who did decide to sell have dramatically increased their asking prices, causing the median list price to nearly double at one point this year, according to Mr. Finnegan.

Since the beginning of this year, the median home in National Landing has sold for $655,000 a surge of 18% compared to the same 10-month period in 2018, according to Bright MLS.

Amazon, which will break ground on its 22-story office towers in National Landing in 2020, is expected to fuel bouts of activity and price growth in the area over time, as it establishes a presence and spurs further development in the area, Mr. Finnegan said.

“You can definitely make an educated guess as Amazon continues to hit milestones that the housing market will parallel that,” he added. “The bottom line is if you own in the area, you’re in great shape.”

New Visibility for Long Island City

There was a time before Amazon pulled out of Long Island City, that real estate agents there reported a similar sense of euphoria: packed open houses, quick deals and developers mulling building-wide price hikes, Mansion Global reported at the time.

Unlike the largely blank canvas the company could to mold in northern Virginia, Long Island City was already on the radar of luxury condo developers and young professionals looking for a less expensive, but still convenient, alternative to Manhattan. The retail giant wouldn’t have created a high-end housing enclave so much as supercharged the one already coming to fruition.

But Amazon’s reversal flipped the script on sellers, some of whom scrambled to keep buyers in contract by offering to sweeten the deal.

Miriam Richards , an associate broker with Compass, said she had a client poised to sign a contract for a two-bedroom condo in one of Long Island City’s luxury new developments when Amazon pulled the plug. The condo’s developer immediately responded to the news by offering to pay part of the closing costs “to keep her comfortable,” Ms. Richards said.

“Asking prices basically stayed the same, but there was more negotiability,” she said.

Amazon’s outsized effect on Long Island City is clear in the sales data. Nearly half of all closings so far in 2019 were initially agreed to in the narrow three-month window from November to February, before the company scrapped its plans, according to data compiled by Patrick Smith , a broker with Corcoran who’s been tracking the Long Island City market for over a decade.

Interest from real estate investors, in particular, has dried up. Such buyers accounted for one in three condo deals during the three months before Amazon pulled the plug on its plans. Since then, investors—defined as buyers who rented the home out immediately upon purchase—accounted for just 7% of all closed deals, according to Mr. Smith ’s analysis.

Meanwhile, the surge in home values owners once hoped would follow Amazon’s presence has not panned out.

“There are people who are disappointed because they felt that real estate values would go up. People felt like this was an economic opportunity lost,” Mr. Smith said.

The inverse of National Landing, it’s sellers, rather than buyers, who are pulling out all the stops to make a deal in Long Island City.

“Sponsors are covering closing costs, they’re paying for common charges and they’re open to reasonable offers,” Mr. Smith said.

“It’s a great time to buy,” he added.

That appears to be the silver lining for Long Island City, where house hunters now have plenty of inventory from which to choose and the confidence that at one time a $1 trillion company wanted to call the neighborhood home, said Lauren Bennett , an agent with Corcoran who also lives in the area.

Though a disappointment to some, the neighborhood’s brief tango with Amazon spun this low-key stretch of waterfront Queens, and its charms, into the national spotlight. Ms. Bennett said she’s witnessed a wave of buyers who wouldn’t have considered living there if not for the HQ2 hoopla.

“I’ve been telling people that I live in Long Island City for years and they were always very insistent that I lived on Long Island,” said Lauren Bennett, an agent with Corcoran. “Suddenly, because of Amazon, people knew where I lived, that I’m one subway stop from Manhattan.”

“Amazon or not,” she added, “it created a lot of transparency in terms of what’s going on in the neighborhood.”

This article first appeared on Mansion Global.