Is it (un)wise to buy a condo in Arlington?

[Anonymous]

We currently rent a nice apartment in Arlington. We like the lifestyle, walk to grocery, library, etc and the short commutes/little maintenance allow us have a lot of family time. Although I will admit there are days I don't feel like going to the park and a yard would be nice. I have been following the couple of $400K house threads as that would also be our max housing budget. In Arlington that seems to get you into a condo. Would buying one be wise? Folks on this forum seem to have a lot of real estate experience. So what am I not thinking of? Will condo fees rise a lot every year? Are special assessments common? Is it very difficult to sell one? It seems that if a condo is not a wise purchase, we can either keep renting or move out to Burke/West Springfield, etc. But we really like Arlington and maybe that's irrational in our price range. Thanks for your advice.

[Anonymous]

I would look at condo sales in your immediate area and see how long things sit on the market in your budget. In certain areas, condos can sit on the market much longer than THs or SFHs.

Condo fees can be really prohibitive in some buildings and I personally would rather have that money and do the maintence myself thatn deal with a condo board, but again, that is a personal preference. For incredibly busy people, the hassle of maintenece can be too much.

I wouldn't call you irrational for wanting to stay where you currently live for 400k. Wishful thinking, maybe, but not irrational


If you want a yard and are sick of the park, a condo or TH will not alleviate that. Is there any part of Burke or West Springfield that will allow you to walk to the grocery store, a library/park or a restaurants? I am a MD resident and I know nothing about either community.

[Anonymous]

I think the answers to most of your questions will depend on the specific condo.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks guys for not letting me hang with no replies I just looked at a couple of SFHs online in Arlington in our price range and they are *almost* cute. Now I feel like the poster in the other thread, would you rather have a tiny, ugly SFH or shiny condo? The houses are not in walkable areas and they feed into (gasp) SArl schools, but it always seems to me like it's wiser. I don't know if I'd care about that distinction, but of course we're in NArl now.

[Anonymous]

I just bought a house in North Arlington after an extensive search that involved seeing 63 houses in North and South Arlington. I saw some pretty nice places, but yeah, at your range it is tough. (I bought for $560K, which was an easier range, but still not great for the area.) I think if I were you, I'd try to find a townhouse in one of the sections of South Arlington that feeds into North Arlington schools. There are a couple pockets of homes that fit this description. Now there's a chance that at some point, you'll end up in boundary for Wakefield HS, but it's possible you'll stay in boundary for Washington-Lee. There's also a townhouse-style condo development on Bedford Street in Lyon Park (North Arlington) that would be worth keeping an eye on. The prices are running below $400K and the condo fees aren't bad. And I saw a really nice TH around 6th S/ Courthouse Rd that fed into N Arlington schools.

Or you could just buy in a cute neighborhood in South Arlington that has schools that are considered good for South Arlington. Patrick Henry is not bad, and the homes that feed into it are a great commute away from DC. Barcroft's principal gets really high marks, and the demographics are slowly shifting. (right now the school has a lot of poorer families.) Most of the homes in your range may not be walkable to metro, but they are probably a couple blocks from a bus stop - Arlington has a lot of bus options. I personally think that the demographics in South Arlington are changing - someone is buying all those really cute $500K+ homes, and they may be sending their kids to neighborhood public schools. I think the condo fee in Fairlington might be too high for you, but if you could find a townhouse development like that with lower fees (maybe with fewer amenities?), that would be a great alternative to a standard one-story condo.

[Anonymous]

I was a renter in the Bedford Park condos in Lyon Park on Bedford street from 2000 until 2006. Do not buy there. Terrible management, terrible infrastructure and a condo association that seems to do nothing but argue over repairs. You might be better off in the brick style condos that are just behind it but it's not really in walking distance to any restaurants/ grocery but w/in walking distance to a school and park.
I live in South Arlington in Columbia Forest. Everyone on my street that has purchased a home in the 400 - 500 k range are professional couples with young kids. The entire neighborhood seems filled with the same type of people (at least those who own the homes they live in). Yes, there are apartments and working class people but I'm very happy with my decision. There's a house for sale in the neighborhood that looks nice from the outside.
This is a great neighborhood and cute house:
http://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/3830-6th-St-S-22204/home/11260964

[Anonymous]

PP here, this is the home in my neighborhood I thought was still for sale but it looks like it sold. http://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/5033-12th-St-S-22204/home/11265460. There's another one down the street that is undergoing renovation right now and looks like it will be sold soon.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your well thought out posts - very informative!

[Anonymous]

My DH and I bought a 2br condo in a beautiful historic building on Columbia Pike in South Arlington in 2008 for 136,000. We thought we were buying at the bottom of the market. Surprise! A unit in our building sold a month ago for 99,500 in foreclosure. So we are underwater on our mortgage.

But even so...I think this is a good move for us and I'm glad we did it. We'll probably move soon, to be closer to family out of the area, but we plan on holding on to the unit as long as we possibly can. There's the BRAC building going up, for one. And also, if you look at data about projected expansion of the DC area, the population is supposed to grow by a couple million in 10-20 years. Where will they all go? Arlington is small, and it's close in. It's not like buying a place in Reston or Manassas, but even those will be good investments, I think, when the real sprawl begins.

It's already happening in our neighborhood. South Arlington is really turning around, in the past two years, we have gone from literally being the only non-immigrant family in a complex littered with empty units to about 50% young professionals and young couples with kids. People walk their dogs, play with their kids in the parks, cook out in the common areas, even started a community garden. We can walk to the farmers market and we're only a 10 minute bus ride from Ballston Metro (about 20 from Pentagon City). Units in our building rent within days of going up on the rental market, for about $200-$300 more than the mortgage payment + condo fee.

I know a lot of DCUMers think S.Arl is the ghetto, but as a young couple raised in NY, we're really happy here, and the lifestyle feels far more walkable and authentically urban than when we rented a TH near a carefully planned community (Shirlington).

[Anonymous]

you should look at Fairlington Villages. We lived there for 10 years and absolutely adore that place. I miss it tons and am convinced I will never be able to find the neighbors we had when living there. It is so nice and safe for young families with 1-2 kids. We moved because we finally needed another bedroom. You can walk to Shirlington which I love. The only "downside" that some may see is that it feeds into South Arlington schools but to be honest those schools are better than the the schools I went to when I was younger. The resell value on those townhouses has not and will not drop because of the location being so close to 395 and the easy accessibility to DC. The only thing that won't solve your problem is that you won't have you own yard but otherwise the neighborhood is SO great!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a renter in the Bedford Park condos in Lyon Park on Bedford street from 2000 until 2006. Do not buy there. Terrible management, terrible infrastructure and a condo association that seems to do nothing but argue over repairs. You might be better off in the brick style condos that are just behind it but it's not really in walking distance to any restaurants/ grocery but w/in walking distance to a school and park.
I live in South Arlington in Columbia Forest. Everyone on my street that has purchased a home in the 400 - 500 k range are professional couples with young kids. The entire neighborhood seems filled with the same type of people (at least those who own the homes they live in). Yes, there are apartments and working class people but I'm very happy with my decision. There's a house for sale in the neighborhood that looks nice from the outside.
This is a great neighborhood and cute house:
http://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/3830-6th-St-S-22204/home/11260964

We rented in this neighborhood for 2 years and did not like it. It is not walkable to much (besides a Target and the Barcroft community center) and the neighborhood is so hilly it makes pushing a stroller or riding a bike difficult. Good luck on your search.

[Anonymous]

just a tip for those looking in south arlington just below 50 - though you're not technically close to metro, you're a quick hop to Ballston. I park at Ballston mall for a pretty cheap monthly rate, drop my daughter off at preschool and take the metro in. it's also a quick trip to DC. And bus routes are worth exploring, too. (i work at gallery place/ archives and there is actually a direct bus from Columbia Pike to Archives, which appears to be the only bus that goes directly to Archives from Virginia.)