Anonymous wrote:Too many stuffy rich people. Seriously... Never thought I'd say this, but I'm in WASP hell. Signed, N. Arlington WASP.

Ditto, loaded with PTA harpies.

Kid sitting on the front lawn, eating dirt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many Democrats. 18:08 -- wanna trade? I'm in a cute Colonial in Bethesda overtaken by McMansions.

Where about? We have a center hall colonial in Chevy Chase -- no McMansion, that would be, uncivilized.

and, a real green dress would be cruel. if you had a million dollars, i mean.

Anonymous wrote:Too many Democrats. 18:08 -- wanna trade? I'm in a cute Colonial in Bethesda overtaken by McMansions.

Where about? We have a center hall colonial in Chevy Chase -- no McMansion, that would be, uncivilized.

Too many Democrats. 18:08 -- wanna trade? I'm in a cute Colonial in Bethesda overtaken by McMansions.

Too many stuffy rich people. Seriously... Never thought I'd say this, but I'm in WASP hell. Signed, N. Arlington WASP.

Too many Republicans in our neighborhood.

Also, check during morning and evening rush hour. You would be surprised at sleepy looking streets becoming major thoroughfares during those times.

I love my neighborhood, except that when the bus goes by our house in the morning, it makes the entire house shake. I have no idea why this is, the neighbors say it happens to their house too. Annoying.

We are on a side street but it is off a busy street. You hear everything and it is difficult to make a left hand turn from our street. Neighbors behind us that have a dumpy back yard. Also think the house behind is being run as a boarding house.

Trash/litter in the streets is another big thing.

Look at the tax records for the houses in your block. If there's too many rentals, that's potentially bad news IMO. This is probably more important for condos/THs than SFHs.

In Fairfax County you can map out where 911 calls were placed from.
Spotcrime will work in many other areas.

I'd go at night. i'd see how easy it is to find a parking spot and see how the neighbors conduct themselves at night.

Be aware of any undeveloped land near by, and what could be in the works for development/what it is zoned for in the future.

I don't hate our neighborhood, but I will say we bought a house on a fairly busy street and the road noise is a bit annoying. Then add in the planes overhead since we're just a couple miles to the airport, and it is more noisy than I would like. Oh, and we also didn't realize that our neighborhood would be completely surrounded by road construction projects on major arteries for a couple years. Again, minor annoyance, not something that I would completely steer clear from, it just affects which roads we travel on and when.

You generally can't have perfection in the under $500K market in this area, I'm afraid. We found a house in a good location for us with all the public schools within a half mile walk and a shopping center also walking distance so that we don't have to be completely car dependent. We have a quarter acre of level, fenced land, which was not as easy to find as one might think. We have some room to grow after doubling our interior space from our previous place. Our house/location has a lot more positives than negatives and we're not completely stretched to afford it. We can deal with the minor annoyances since the big plusses balance them out.

1) roads are icy and scary during bad weather/last to get plowed
2) neighbors don't keep their house well (look for lots of weeds, overgrown shrubs, evidence of using the front of their house for storage of all their unsightly tools and kids toys
3) bad architecture around your house (you will have to look at that ginormous 11,000 sq foot monstrosity that was designed cheaply, without an architect, every day)
4) not convenient to anything/far from places you would go (parks, friends houses, etc)
5) not enough younger families
6) lack of mature trees/abundance of exposed, prominent power lines
7) high traffic or through street (ESP if you have kids).

Not in my current neighborhood but in prior neighborhoods I have lived, so I have learned to look out for these.

What do I need to notice or keep an eye out for while house hunting?