NoVA is weird. . .

[CraigCreek]

Originally Posted by r small

My old neighborhood in Arlington where I lived for many years, Alcova Heights off Columbia Pike, is seeing a lot of this. Small two story colonials and one story ramblers torn down and replaced with monstrous three and four story mega McMansions. It's destroying the character of some of these older inner ring neighborhoods.

Sadly, this happened to the very well kept and updated late 1950s Arlington home of one of my late older relatives.

It had been her dream home, constructed precisely to the preferences of her and her late husband. It was a four bedroom, two fireplace, two and a half bathroom brick ranch with a developed walk-out basement with a paneled family room and a wet bar, on a quiet street, on a normal sized wooded lot, convenient to shopping, schools, and church, and about fifteen minutes' from the Mall except for rush hour. It included ample storage, an attic, a large screened porch, and a double-attached garage, now all gone to make way for the oversized two and a half story out-of-scale-with-the-neighborhood semi-Nantucket frame McMansion that replaced it.

Like my late grandmother's house, a long-gone frame Victorian in southern Virginia, I can still close my eyes and walk through each of that house's room in my mind's eye. So many memories...

Gone to make room for quick profit and wretched excess.

[Ffxdata]

Originally Posted by LynchburgLover

I was advised to always buy a house built during a recession. Builders keep their best/most skilled employees so the quality is better. When things are rocking, they’ll hire anything with a hammer so the workmanship is shoddier.

Yeah no way would I follow that advice.
My spouse’s parents bought during a new build during a recession. The builder took a bunch of shortcuts including never hooking up a half bath toilet to an out drain pipe. They ran out of money and just sealed everything up and let the waste dump into the ground below the house. It took a surprisingly long time for them to figure out what was going on. Who knows what’s going on behind those walls.

[LynchburgLover]

Originally Posted by Ffxdata

Yeah no way would I follow that advice.
My spouse’s parents bought during a new build during a recession. The builder took a bunch of shortcuts including never hooking up a half bath toilet to an out drain pipe. They ran out of money and just sealed everything up and let the waste dump into the ground below the house. It took a surprisingly long time for them to figure out what was going on. Who knows what’s going on behind those walls.

Wow — well, it was just a suggestion made to me years ago and seemed to make sense. Guess it depends on reputation of the builder.

[CraigCreek]

Originally Posted by Ffxdata

Yeah no way would I follow that advice.
My spouse’s parents bought during a new build during a recession. The builder took a bunch of shortcuts including never hooking up a half bath toilet to an out drain pipe. They ran out of money and just sealed everything up and let the waste dump into the ground below the house. It took a surprisingly long time for them to figure out what was going on. Who knows what’s going on behind those walls.

How did the house ever pass inspection? And did your in-laws have it privately inspected prior to purchase?

I once owned a house in which the builder or contractor had used far more plumbing pipes than necessary in the crawl space - it was a labyrinth, pretty obviously designed to use as much material as possible and to bill someone else excessively for materials. Pipes went this way and that way and every which way except the most efficient and direct way.

An honest plumber I hired to fix a minor leak made the discovery, which had no bearing on functionality - just a blatant example of a crooked contractor abusing others' trust for the quick buck.

[piperdiva]

Having recently moved from a Stepford like home in Southern California to NoVa, I really appreciate the differences between homes and low maintenance yards. I hope the cookie cutter McMansion on a zero sq. ft. lot trend doesn't take off out here.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by piperdiva

Having recently moved from a Stepford like home in Southern California to NoVa, I really appreciate the differences between homes and low maintenance yards. I hope the cookie cutter McMansion on a zero sq. ft. lot trend doesn't take off out here.

That's largely an Arlington phenomenon. The lots for single-family houses tend to be larger in Fairfax and Loudoun, with some exceptions. It would be less of an issue if builders built smaller homes on the smaller lots, but they believe they can make more money if just about every new house has at least 4500 SF.

[goofy328]

Originally Posted by FootballDadandSoccerMom

Northern Virginia, more specifically Fairfax / Alexandria / Arlington has to be the weirdest place in the United States. According to pretty much every forum, we make the most money. . . but you could barely tell. If you looked at most of the houses (not including the ones that were rebuilt in places where ranchers previously were) you would think we were in a blue collar town in any town USA. You have to go out into Loudoun or Prince William to get true suburbs. Not to be ranty, because quite frankly, I could never live anywhere but Mclean, but NoVA is hella weird. Just look at Falls Church, super rich, half the town looks bummy, and the zoning is really random. What are you guys thoughts on this? How a place can be so rich, yet not compare to most suburbs (for instance Ashburn, Short Pump in Richmond, or even any of the ATL, DFW, or CLT burbs)

Basically what I am saying is why does the “second richest county in america” look like much less desirable areas in places like Richmond or Philadelphia? Not trying to start any arguments by the way.

When you say weird I was expecting something a bit different, like culturally. I think what you're experiencing is the fact that Virginia is in the Mid-Atlantic and is technically, part of the East Coast, just in a different way, so architecturally, or as far as how "clean" the area is, just a microcosm of what you see up North. Atlanta is very similar in this respect. Inner city anyway, not so much suburban Atlanta.

You are talking about older, urban areas of Northern Virginia, not the new construction.

[paytonc]

Easy - the value of the houses isn't in their construction, it's in the land beneath them.

https://www.buildzoom.com/blog/payin...truction-costs