All of the housing stock under $1m is HORRIBLE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, I guess it depends on where exactly you are looking. Where exactly are you looking?

One of us works in Arlington and the other in Herndon. We've been looking in Alexandria, Falls Church, and South Arlington for a townhome. Completely priced out of DC.

I see plenty of townhomes for sale in those areas under $1M. What is your definition of horrible?

[Anonymous]

If people would stop demanding turnkey houses, sellers wouldn't feel compelled to slap things together to meet this demand. I will never understand why people can't use their imaginations and buy something that needs tweaking to meet their exact needs/tastes. I saw my current house before the sellers held the open house. In between those two visits, the sellers paid to install a brand new beige toilet in the white bathroom. I wish they'd just left it alone because now I feel guilty about tearing out a brand new toilet even though it doesn't match. Similarly, rejecting a house because it has light fixtures you hate means that you don't get to pick out the perfect new light fixtures yourself and instead must live with somebody else's choice. And you pass up lots of houses that might have been fantastic for your family. It's about location, not an easily replaced faucet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If people would stop demanding turnkey houses, sellers wouldn't feel compelled to slap things together to meet this demand. I will never understand why people can't use their imaginations and buy something that needs tweaking to meet their exact needs/tastes. I saw my current house before the sellers held the open house. In between those two visits, the sellers paid to install a brand new beige toilet in the white bathroom. I wish they'd just left it alone because now I feel guilty about tearing out a brand new toilet even though it doesn't match. Similarly, rejecting a house because it has light fixtures you hate means that you don't get to pick out the perfect new light fixtures yourself and instead must live with somebody else's choice. And you pass up lots of houses that might have been fantastic for your family. It's about location, not an easily replaced faucet.

I think this works for people with a ton of money but for the rest of us we are spending most of our savings on a house. I cant fathom purchasing an expensive old home and plan to renovate every room only to find out that I have to do more than cosmetic renovations.

I dont need a turnkey house but I also am not going to pretend im on property brothers and can afford to completely reno a house and get it up to code.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If people would stop demanding turnkey houses, sellers wouldn't feel compelled to slap things together to meet this demand. I will never understand why people can't use their imaginations and buy something that needs tweaking to meet their exact needs/tastes. I saw my current house before the sellers held the open house. In between those two visits, the sellers paid to install a brand new beige toilet in the white bathroom. I wish they'd just left it alone because now I feel guilty about tearing out a brand new toilet even though it doesn't match. Similarly, rejecting a house because it has light fixtures you hate means that you don't get to pick out the perfect new light fixtures yourself and instead must live with somebody else's choice. And you pass up lots of houses that might have been fantastic for your family. It's about location, not an easily replaced faucet.

I'm one of the PPs, and light fixtures are not why I'm passing on houses. The issues are location and size. I'd be willing to bump out a wall but the lots in question don't accommodate this. If I'm going to pay upward of $800 or $900k I expect a big improvement in the space available.

- looking to trade up from a TH in the suburbs

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if it helps, but we bought an older house that needed a face lift (but the maintenance was solid). Used builder grade stuff for the kitchen and painted. Our plan is to build on our lot in 15 years or so, I figured the cost of the land will far outpace anything else.

We are in Vienna.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, I guess it depends on where exactly you are looking. Where exactly are you looking?

One of us works in Arlington and the other in Herndon. We've been looking in Alexandria, Falls Church, and South Arlington for a townhome. Completely priced out of DC.

Seriously? If you can't find a non-horrible TOWNHOME in Alexandria/FC/S. Arlington for under a million, you are completely hopeless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If people would stop demanding turnkey houses, sellers wouldn't feel compelled to slap things together to meet this demand. I will never understand why people can't use their imaginations and buy something that needs tweaking to meet their exact needs/tastes. I saw my current house before the sellers held the open house. In between those two visits, the sellers paid to install a brand new beige toilet in the white bathroom. I wish they'd just left it alone because now I feel guilty about tearing out a brand new toilet even though it doesn't match. Similarly, rejecting a house because it has light fixtures you hate means that you don't get to pick out the perfect new light fixtures yourself and instead must live with somebody else's choice. And you pass up lots of houses that might have been fantastic for your family. It's about location, not an easily replaced faucet.

Do you live in the area? $500,000 buys you a tear down in places like Arlington. It’s not about light fixtures. If I’m making $300,000 a year and carrying a $1 million loan, I want to like my home without having to spend another $100,000 renovating the whole place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, I guess it depends on where exactly you are looking. Where exactly are you looking?

One of us works in Arlington and the other in Herndon. We've been looking in Alexandria, Falls Church, and South Arlington for a townhome. Completely priced out of DC.

Your jobs are in places where being inside the beltway isn't really a huge deal. Bet you could find something lovely in Herndon or Reston that would make for a pair of easy commutes.

Those of us who live inside the beltway definitely develop a pretty skewed sense of "farther out." Yeah, Falls Church is farther out than Arlington, but not far enough to matter. You don't really start realizing any sort of cost savings until you're talking Springfield instead of Alexandria, or Vienna instead of Falls Church. And even then, you realize exponentially more savings if you keep out to Woodbridge, or Manassas...and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, I guess it depends on where exactly you are looking. Where exactly are you looking?

One of us works in Arlington and the other in Herndon. We've been looking in Alexandria, Falls Church, and South Arlington for a townhome. Completely priced out of DC.

Seriously? If you can't find a non-horrible TOWNHOME in Alexandria/FC/S. Arlington for under a million, you are completely hopeless.

+1 I lost all sympathy. WTF? Do they even make townhomes for over $1 million in those places? (Aside from Old Town?)

[Anonymous]

I think this works for people with a ton of money but for the rest of us we are spending most of our savings on a house. I cant fathom purchasing an expensive old home and plan to renovate every room only to find out that I have to do more than cosmetic renovations.

I dont need a turnkey house but I also am not going to pretend im on property brothers and can afford to completely reno a house and get it up to code -----.

The point is to buy a house for a lower price than the "pretty" ones and do the updates yourself, instead of paying the middleman flipper for his troubles. Sure, you're still spending a lot but it will be less overall than if you buy turnkey. Being willing to live with construction and having work done over time is how you build serious equity in the DC area.

We did this with a newborn. 10 years later made a $300 k profit after accounting for what we put into it. We tore out old carpets ourselves, laid pavers for a patio ourselves, built decorative privacy fencing with the help of day laborers from Casa de Maryland, and so on. I painted almost every wall myself over those 10 years.

To sell it, I went to Community Forklift and bought gently used items to make it look like what uninformed DC buyers want. In bathrooms
we painted the 1970s tile white. Had a contract over asking in less than a week.

If you think that all turnkey looking houses don't have at least a few surprises waiting for you, you're naive. I suppose buying a brand new house with a warranty makes sense if that's what you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, I guess it depends on where exactly you are looking. Where exactly are you looking?

One of us works in Arlington and the other in Herndon. We've been looking in Alexandria, Falls Church, and South Arlington for a townhome. Completely priced out of DC.

Seriously? If you can't find a non-horrible TOWNHOME in Alexandria/FC/S. Arlington for under a million, you are completely hopeless.

+1 I lost all sympathy. WTF? Do they even make townhomes for over $1 million in those places? (Aside from Old Town?)

Err... you think it's ok because it's a townhouse? That's not what most are looking for and if they have to settle for a townhouse its not a feeling of satisfaction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:sorry, nice homes cost $$$$$$$ here. mine is not for sale, but if it was it would be for over $900k. nice area with good schools (CCDC), but 3bd and only 1.5 bath. kitchen and bathrooms are from many decades ago, the full bathroom is maybe 5ft X 8 or 9 max. homes with 4bd and at least 2bth and in good shape are from 1.2M up.

Except a lot of these houses are not “nice.”

[Anonymous]

No one cares you dumb snob

[Anonymous]

So, the problem isn't that there are not good houses on the market. The problem is that OP doesn't like the market's prices here in the DMV. Can't nobody help you with that. $300K here won't buy you what it does in West Virginia.

[Anonymous]

$300K annual income won't buy what you could get in Kansas.