Close-in, small, high end house - Does it exsit?

[Anonymous]

DH and I will be retiring in the next few years and want to move back to the DC area (left in 2001) to be closer to grandkids who are now 4 and 2. We want a smaller (<2,000 sq ft) home but with new and high end finishes. Think professional remodels on Houzz.com. We want to be within .5 mile of locally owned shops and restaurants and easy access into DC. We garden extensively and want at least some yard (maybe not more than a 10,000 sq ft lot) so that rules out a condo, row house on Capitol Hill or townhouse.

Grandkids are in Fair Oaks area and while we will not be babysitting on a daily basis as they will probably be in school FT once we move there, we will do Sunday family dinners, weekend date night and take care of sick kids.


No split levels or center hall colonials....

Budget <$1.5M

How difficult is it to find such a house or will we have to tear down and build from the ground up or remodel extensively?

[Anonymous]

Few and far between. Maybe look in Del Ray?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Few and far between. Maybe look in Del Ray?

Yes, look in zip 22301.

[Anonymous]

You don't need to spend 1.5 million to get a small renovated home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I will be retiring in the next few years and want to move back to the DC area (left in 2001) to be closer to grandkids who are now 4 and 2. We want a smaller (<2,000 sq ft) home but with new and high end finishes. Think professional remodels on Houzz.com. We want to be within .5 mile of locally owned shops and restaurants and easy access into DC. We garden extensively and want at least some yard (maybe not more than a 10,000 sq ft lot) so that rules out a condo, row house on Capitol Hill or townhouse.

Grandkids are in Fair Oaks area and while we will not be babysitting on a daily basis as they will probably be in school FT once we move there, we will do Sunday family dinners, weekend date night and take care of sick kids.


No split levels or center hall colonials....

Budget <$1.5M

How difficult is it to find such a house or will we have to tear down and build from the ground up or remodel extensively?

If you are not familiar with the area, the drive time between fair oaks and DC is very long.

You will need to balance proximity to your kids vs how much you want to be in DC.

Areas that have town centers or local shops starting from closest to Fair Oaks to DC

Fairfax Towne Center
Town of Vienna
Tysons Silver Line Development Areas
City of Falls Church
North Arlington Areas
I would not recommend anywhere outside of those because it will severely impact travel times.

Although Old Town / Del Ray Alexandria would be great for you the travel time would be extreme.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I will be retiring in the next few years and want to move back to the DC area (left in 2001) to be closer to grandkids who are now 4 and 2. We want a smaller (<2,000 sq ft) home but with new and high end finishes. Think professional remodels on Houzz.com. We want to be within .5 mile of locally owned shops and restaurants and easy access into DC. We garden extensively and want at least some yard (maybe not more than a 10,000 sq ft lot) so that rules out a condo, row house on Capitol Hill or townhouse.

Grandkids are in Fair Oaks area and while we will not be babysitting on a daily basis as they will probably be in school FT once we move there, we will do Sunday family dinners, weekend date night and take care of sick kids.


No split levels or center hall colonials....

Budget <$1.5M

How difficult is it to find such a house or will we have to tear down and build from the ground up or remodel extensively?

If you are not familiar with the area, the drive time between fair oaks and DC is very long.

You will need to balance proximity to your kids vs how much you want to be in DC.

Areas that have town centers or local shops starting from closest to Fair Oaks to DC

Fairfax Towne Center
Town of Vienna
Tysons Silver Line Development Areas
City of Falls Church
North Arlington Areas
I would not recommend anywhere outside of those because it will severely impact travel times.

Although Old Town / Del Ray Alexandria would be great for you the travel time would be extreme.

I forgot one area

Fairfax Towne Center
Town of Vienna
Tysons Silver Line Development Areas
Mosaic District
City of Falls Church
North Arlington Areas

[Anonymous]

We live in one of those in downtown Bethesda.

OK, not quite. We bought a fixer-upper and gutted most of the house. So the exterior still looks like the shabby Dutch colonial it always was - full of "character" and "charm" - and the interior is a decorator's dream, if I do say so myself.
DH gardens a lot.
Total: $800K, not counting tearing our hair out because of the unreliable workers.

In our neighborhood, only one small house was redone high-end and sold for about 1M+.

So I would say you are in the right price range, but such houses are quite rare. You might have to supervise a gut job yourself. Pro: you can suit your taste and live in your dream house ever after. Con: dealing with contractors is awful, however reputable (expensive) the firm.

[Anonymous]

New build in Pimmit Hills. Several are being finished right now. Probably coming slightly under your budget - and $1m-ish. Perfect location. You can walk to shops from the 2 on Cherri Drive and the one on Arch (that one is still in the beginning phase). Or you could just buy a teardown on that end of the neighborhood for $400K-ish and build your own. That would be much cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I will be retiring in the next few years and want to move back to the DC area (left in 2001) to be closer to grandkids who are now 4 and 2. We want a smaller (<2,000 sq ft) home but with new and high end finishes. Think professional remodels on Houzz.com. We want to be within .5 mile of locally owned shops and restaurants and easy access into DC. We garden extensively and want at least some yard (maybe not more than a 10,000 sq ft lot) so that rules out a condo, row house on Capitol Hill or townhouse.

Grandkids are in Fair Oaks area and while we will not be babysitting on a daily basis as they will probably be in school FT once we move there, we will do Sunday family dinners, weekend date night and take care of sick kids.


No split levels or center hall colonials....

Budget <$1.5M

How difficult is it to find such a house or will we have to tear down and build from the ground up or remodel extensively?

If you are not familiar with the area, the drive time between fair oaks and DC is very long.

You will need to balance proximity to your kids vs how much you want to be in DC.

Areas that have town centers or local shops starting from closest to Fair Oaks to DC

Fairfax Towne Center
Town of Vienna
Tysons Silver Line Development Areas
City of Falls Church
North Arlington Areas
I would not recommend anywhere outside of those because it will severely impact travel times.

Although Old Town / Del Ray Alexandria would be great for you the travel time would be extreme.

I forgot one area

Fairfax Towne Center
Town of Vienna
Tysons Silver Line Development Areas
Mosaic District
City of Falls Church
North Arlington Areas

Are there SFHs with room to garden in Mosaic District?

Agree to also look in Town of Vienna and Falls Church City.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your suggestions.
We moved out of the area 13 years ago and I know northern Virginia has changed and GROWN A LOT since then.

I feel like I spent the last 25 years so focused on raising a family and life being centered around family stuff that I now want to return to just being a "old" couple with DH. We lived well within our means (good paying jobs helped, too) while raising children and are probably in the top 2-3% of wealth. We're willing to pay for location, location, location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New build in Pimmit Hills. Several are being finished right now. Probably coming slightly under your budget - and $1m-ish. Perfect location. You can walk to shops from the 2 on Cherri Drive and the one on Arch (that one is still in the beginning phase). Or you could just buy a teardown on that end of the neighborhood for $400K-ish and build your own. That would be much cheaper.

I would recommend pimmit hills but the new builds may be too large for them. If I had 1 million to burn on a smaller place I would look elsewhere.

http://www.redfin.com/VA/Falls-Church/2021-Hillside-Dr-22043/home/9472313

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New build in Pimmit Hills. Several are being finished right now. Probably coming slightly under your budget - and $1m-ish. Perfect location. You can walk to shops from the 2 on Cherri Drive and the one on Arch (that one is still in the beginning phase). Or you could just buy a teardown on that end of the neighborhood for $400K-ish and build your own. That would be much cheaper.

I would recommend pimmit hills but the new builds may be too large for them. If I had 1 million to burn on a smaller place I would look elsewhere.

http://www.redfin.com/VA/Falls-Church/2021-Hillside-Dr-22043/home/9472313

Sorry my apologies this is not in pimmit hills, I was trying to provide links to the size of home in their budget range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New build in Pimmit Hills. Several are being finished right now. Probably coming slightly under your budget - and $1m-ish. Perfect location. You can walk to shops from the 2 on Cherri Drive and the one on Arch (that one is still in the beginning phase). Or you could just buy a teardown on that end of the neighborhood for $400K-ish and build your own. That would be much cheaper.

I would recommend pimmit hills but the new builds may be too large for them. If I had 1 million to burn on a smaller place I would look elsewhere.

http://www.redfin.com/VA/Falls-Church/2021-Hillside-Dr-22043/home/9472313

Sorry my apologies this is not in pimmit hills, I was trying to provide links to the size of home in their budget range.

Actually this small build new home might be a good fit but I don't know if it's very close to shopping. The closet shopping area is still under development and probably a year a way.
http://www.redfin.com/VA/Falls-Church/1928-Cherri-Dr-22043/home/9470709

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in one of those in downtown Bethesda.

OK, not quite. We bought a fixer-upper and gutted most of the house. So the exterior still looks like the shabby Dutch colonial it always was - full of "character" and "charm" - and the interior is a decorator's dream, if I do say so myself.
DH gardens a lot.
Total: $800K, not counting tearing our hair out because of the unreliable workers.

In our neighborhood, only one small house was redone high-end and sold for about 1M+.

So I would say you are in the right price range, but such houses are quite rare. You might have to supervise a gut job yourself. Pro: you can suit your taste and live in your dream house ever after. Con: dealing with contractors is awful, however reputable (expensive) the firm.

There are some great PROs of doing this but it also comes with major headaches. We just did a master bath gut with a designer and learned a lot more than I ever wanted.
We may have to go this route as we want to get as close to our wish list as possible for once....

[Anonymous]

something like this (minus weird fixtures in kitchen)?
http://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/4114-21st-St-N-22207/home/11233772