Charlottesville home maintenance? (Norfolk, Forest: real estate, rent, houses)

[Mike-NC]

Something that surprised my wife & me when we moved to the North Carolina coast was the high household maintenance due to climate conditions. For example, we had to have the crawl space of our house sealed and dehumidified (after repairing extensive damage). Paint and roofs need frequent replacement because of sun and hurricanes. In the garden, weedy vines can overrun shrubs in a single season. All in all, house & garden maintenance is much higher than anywhere else we've lived.

That is a long preamble to this question: How is the maintenance situation in Charlottesville? What Catch-22s should we know about?

Thanks!

P.S. "Anywhere else we've lived" includes Providence, RI; Chicago, IL; San Diego and San Rafel, CA; Norfolk, VA; and Miami, FL.

[TrvlnMn]

Maintenance depends on a lot of things- is the house new or resale? Big Yard or small? If resale- how well did the previous owners take care of it? Charlottesville has a temperate 4 season climate and it is humid in the summer time (but nowhere near as humid as Miami). Winter doesn't usually settle in until January and it's not going to be as bad as you would've experienced in Chicago or Providence. If the house has a basement you'll probably eventually wind up paying for waterproofing- and if its an older house with a basement you'll definitely wind up paying for waterproofing. If you live in one of the more pricey neighborhoods (Glenmore, Farmington, Ednam Forest, etc) you'll pay more for any services you might decide to have (lawn care, home improvement projects, etc). However in all I wouldn't imagine it's too different than Norfolk, (Caveat: I've never lived in Norfolk). Exercise due diligence in your purchase and you should be fine. Better yet, rent for a year before you decide to buy. Good luck with your endeavors.

[Mike-NC]

Thanks, TrvlnMn, for the response. We have until now rented before buying. I think in retirement we'd like to avoid moving twice. However, we'll visit repeatedly whatever area we choose before we move.

It seems that getting out of the hurricane zone & the extreme humidity in this area should lower maintenance somewhat.

Any other hints on typical Charlottesville maintenance concerns or unusual situations to watch out for will be welcome, from you or anyone else.

Mike

[TrvlnMn]

Spring and summer you'll mow your lawn a lot. Currently the local water authority has the area under drought restrictions- which means limited watering (and water use in general) and a lot of brown lawns. They're in the middle of a 5 or so year plan to increase overall water capacity, part of which is waiting on approval from the Army Corp of Engineering. It's also a bit of a political issue because of the developers putting up the houses before there is proper infrastructure to support it, and during past years those costs have gotten passed onto homeowners in the form of higher property taxes.

Additionally two new developments just received approval from local government, one of which will create 3100 new housing units for the area.

Other issues:

In Charlottesville public transit is bad. It's a bus system (no rail) and it competes with regular traffic so you get all of the headaches with few of the benefits. How bad depends on where you live. If you live in the city some areas are better. If you live in the County (Albemarle or any other) you may or may not have access to public transit at all. You will in most cases need a car to get wherever you're going.

Websites of possible use with regards to Cville:

City of Charlottesville website: charlottesville.org
County of Albemarle website: albemarle.org

News (print):

dailyprogress.com (main paper)

readthehook.com (alternative weekly #1)

c-ville.com (alternative weekly #2)

Current Events discussion:

cvillenews.com

realcentralva.com (Real Estate topics)

That last one will probably be the most helpful for you. I am not affiliated with any of them but am just a frequent reader and where allowed an occasional commenter.

Good luck.

[Mike-NC]

Thanks again!