Why do people in the DC area hate newer and larger homes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not like old houses nor do I like small houses. But I'm from the south, where living in a old or small house usually means you are probably broke.

It's the opposite in this area!!! Go 45 miles outside the city and you'll have a Mansion for what you'd pay for 1,500 square feet close-in.

I love when a Southern inlaw was going in about how her friend just bought a million dollar home while she was standing in the kitchen of my $1.5 million home. I just demurely smiled in the Southern way. Bless her heart for being so ignorant

I don't think they are the "ignorant" ones. After all, you are the one paying 1.5 million dollars for a house that you could get for $200,000 in many other places. When we were in D.C., I felt like the ignorant one for spending almost $800,000 on a just-o.k. house. We moved and paid $250,000 for a five bedroom, all stucco house in a golf, tennis, swim community. Our home backs up to the water and I can be on the beach in ten minutes.

Your inlaws have presumably been around longer than you have. They are probably smarter than you give them credit for.

Um, no. Only ignorant people don't understand how real estate prices work in different parts of the country. It's great when you can afford a really nice, perfect house where you want and need to live. Other people make compromises.

[Anonymous]

DH and I both grew up in 70s tract houses in CA. Was so excited to have a house with history, stairs, and bricks. Though I don't throw stones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People in DC complain about large homes for one or more of the following reasons:

1) They fancy themselves trendy hipsters who think of large homes as resignation towards a life of McMansion suburbia. They feel bad that they don't live someplace truly hip and urban like Brooklyn, so they have to pretend.

2) They are from places other than the United States and thus are unaccustomed to the large homes that are typical in many if not most of this country, so liking large homes is "vulgar" or just unfathomable.

3) With the prices in DMV, they simply cannot afford large homes. They secretly envy their friends and relatives living in 4000 sq. ft. homes in Indiana or Ohio, but what can you do? They are here in DC and must pretend they prefer a smaller home.

Or

4) They are not from Indiana or Ohio at all but from the Northeast where small and old are actually positive attributes. They grew up with craftsmanship and detailing, brick and plaster and walls that were not made of particle board, solid wood doors, not hollow ones, slate roofs and copper pipes etc. so when they see these huge particle board houses going up -- the kind a limp-wristed middle schooler could punch a hole in -- they are reminded of plywood dollhouse kits.

+1000000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not like old houses nor do I like small houses. But I'm from the south, where living in a old or small house usually means you are probably broke.

It's the opposite in this area!!! Go 45 miles outside the city and you'll have a Mansion for what you'd pay for 1,500 square feet close-in.

I love when a Southern inlaw was going in about how her friend just bought a million dollar home while she was standing in the kitchen of my $1.5 million home. I just demurely smiled in the Southern way. Bless her heart for being so ignorant

Sad your home doesn't look like a million dollar home. Maybe your in laws friends home would be 5 million in dc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not like old houses nor do I like small houses. But I'm from the south, where living in a old or small house usually means you are probably broke.

It's the opposite in this area!!! Go 45 miles outside the city and you'll have a Mansion for what you'd pay for 1,500 square feet close-in.

I love when a Southern inlaw was going in about how her friend just bought a million dollar home while she was standing in the kitchen of my $1.5 million home. I just demurely smiled in the Southern way. Bless her heart for being so ignorant

Sad your home doesn't look like a million dollar home. Maybe your in laws friends home would be 5 million in dc.

Hey Retard, the point is they wouldn't be able to afford a 1/4 of that square footage anywhere remotely close to DC.

At least my friends in their $250k Mansion in the Midwest are smart enough to realize that and joke about it. The Southerner isn't so bright.

[Anonymous]

I love many (by no means all) old houses, mainly for aesthetic reasons. That said, if I had the means to replicate the character, craftsmanship, and architectural integrity of old homes with new construction, I would build a new home with those characteristics. Most new construction I see around here don't meet those criteria, and I am accordingly not attracted to them, and in some case repelled by them. It's just a matter of taste. To each their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not like old houses nor do I like small houses. But I'm from the south, where living in a old or small house usually means you are probably broke.

It's the opposite in this area!!! Go 45 miles outside the city and you'll have a Mansion for what you'd pay for 1,500 square feet close-in.

I love when a Southern inlaw was going in about how her friend just bought a million dollar home while she was standing in the kitchen of my $1.5 million home. I just demurely smiled in the Southern way. Bless her heart for being so ignorant

Sad your home doesn't look like a million dollar home. Maybe your in laws friends home would be 5 million in dc.

Hey Retard, the point is they wouldn't be able to afford a 1/4 of that square footage anywhere remotely close to DC.

At least my friends in their $250k Mansion in the Midwest are smart enough to realize that and joke about it. The Southerner isn't so bright.

Wow. Did you seriously just use that word?

I think the one thing everyone on this thread can agree on is that you are an idiot and your opinion carries ZERO weight at this point.

Only classless, uneducated and clueless people use that language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why people hate them so much to the point it becomes some religious or political movement.

I wonder if housing was cheaper around here that there would be less complaining and hate for them.

mostly because your giant, garage front POS is way too big for the neighborhood and makes my 90 year old center hall colonial look like a tool shed. Thanks so much for turning Chevy Chase into New Jersey.

[Anonymous]

OP, one word: JEALOUSY. It is obvious. You were not expecting them to admit it were you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not like old houses nor do I like small houses. But I'm from the south, where living in a old or small house usually means you are probably broke.

It's the opposite in this area!!! Go 45 miles outside the city and you'll have a Mansion for what you'd pay for 1,500 square feet close-in.

I love when a Southern inlaw was going in about how her friend just bought a million dollar home while she was standing in the kitchen of my $1.5 million home. I just demurely smiled in the Southern way. Bless her heart for being so ignorant

Sad your home doesn't look like a million dollar home. Maybe your in laws friends home would be 5 million in dc.

Hey Retard, the point is they wouldn't be able to afford a 1/4 of that square footage anywhere remotely close to DC.

At least my friends in their $250k Mansion in the Midwest are smart enough to realize that and joke about it. The Southerner isn't so bright.

agreed. but lets not pretend ALL older houses are great. home construction is much better now than any point in our history. Do you think computers are better than in the 80s? Well, construction improves at the same pace.

[Anonymous]

Old home lover here. I do think construction has improved, and one could in principle build a better built home now than in the past. The problem is that a great number of builders now don't use the available technology but instead rely on the cheapest possible way to mass produce homes of inferior craftsmanship than yesteryear.

[Anonymous]

OP, this area did not historically have the wealth it does now, so the construction of the old houses is poor and small. It certainly did not have the majority of huge, beautiful houses like few/some areas of the U.S. (which is why those are still standing, they were intended to).

Some people in this area can only afford the old houses, which is fine - but leave the new houses be, they are beautiful.

I don't see bashing what you can't afford, but some people see it as a past time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why people hate them so much to the point it becomes some religious or political movement.

I wonder if housing was cheaper around here that there would be less complaining and hate for them.

mostly because your giant, garage front POS is way too big for the neighborhood and makes my 90 year old center hall colonial look like a tool shed. Thanks so much for turning Chevy Chase into New Jersey.

I'll have you know I'm from Montclair, NJ and the houses there are old, beautiful and far superior to most of what passes for prime housing in the DMV. Just saying...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Old home lover here. I do think construction has improved, and one could in principle build a better built home now than in the past. The problem is that a great number of builders now don't use the available technology but instead rely on the cheapest possible way to mass produce homes of inferior craftsmanship than yesteryear.

Which is why a house built in 1975 isn't going to last as long as the one built in 1880. The walls in our rowhouse let in no sound and you can't punch a hole in the wall.

Not much resembling Notre Dame, Sagrada Familia, St Basils, etc.

The majority of new home builders use crap materials and put these things up in a few months time.

The capability to build more efficient homes is there--just not frequently utilized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people in DC tend to be better educated and more worldly, and thus are able to either "make do" with 2,000 SF (or less sometimes) to be in a good, urban, walkable environment, or see their dream home as something large but not strangling. Like 4,000 SF, not 10,000. And being better educated, they value design and aesthetic over opulence.

Of course, there are the outliers who are very wealthy and want the 10,000 SF frontgate design home. Different strokes for difft folks.

I don't really buy this. It's just wishful thinking about the particular milieu in which one resides. If a celebrity or well-known entrepreneur buys or builds a large house, no one bats an eye; in fact, they'll buy the latest version of Architectural Digest and gaze at the property with envy. But, if some random business person does so, the knives come out - "new money," "gauche," "arriviste," etc. It is just too upsetting to your sense of self to confront the reality that other people may not value what you have. From their perspective, what you have isn't tasteful or aesthetically pleasing, just ordinary.