How can singles afford houses in NOVA?!?!

[South Jersey Styx]

Originally Posted by normie

There's bound to be a desparate seller somewhere--surely there's someone who has to move to another state or who wants to unload grandma's beat up house. It would probably be a foreclosure that needs a lot of fixing up and have other problems such as a difficult commute, but since you seem to be willing to accept a house with serious fixer-upper needs, I think you could find something.

A good suggestion Normie. The only problem for a single buyer like RR is that alot of investors are already buying up foreclosures and short-sales and flipping them. So RR would be competing with them as well as other interested buyers like himself.

We ran into this problem even when we were house-searching out in Winchester! I'm not sure how it was working in other parts of Winchester but nearly every house we looked at in the historic district was snapped up by investors and/or went into a bid war (and they ALL needed some kind of repairs and/or upgrades!). After losing out on one house, my Realtor said, "Okay, we have to approach these (future offers on houses we wanted) like investors." Which also meant someone who is already pre-approved and with the cash needed for foreclosure/short sales.

[normie]

Originally Posted by South Jersey Styx

A good suggestion Normie. The only problem for a single buyer like RR is that alot of investors are already buying up foreclosures and short-sales and flipping them. So RR would be competing with them as well as other interested buyers like himself.

Good point, we do seem to have an unusually quick turn around time here and a lot of buyers looking for homes. A lot of foreclosures don't last on the market very long.

[stpickrell]

In Winchester, for under $125, I am seeing a few SFH's on lots larger than 0.1 acre and several more townhouse-style SFH's (with maybe 5-10 feet between homes). I see 30 properties total.

The area to the west of the walking mall around John Handley High School (where priceless works of art are stuffed in closets and then forgotten) will get you nice lots (0.15 to 0.3 acres) but will cost ya $275k on up to maybe $750k. And yes, if I moved out there, it's where I'd go.

Winchester to Reston is doable if one is down with leaving at 530am or so to avoid the worst of Route 7 traffic.

But I think RR has said that his job might move further in. I wouldn't advise going much further in than Reston/Herndon from Winchester without some sort of vanpool, etc., lined up.

With that said, an area's housing stock and income range is what it is. We live in one of the highest-income metros in the country, in an urban area. Hence, the typical house available to a 25-35 year old single man in Winchester is a 2/1 or 3/1 SFH, in not terribly renovated condition, on a 0.1 acre or less lot. The typical house available to a 25-35 year old single man in NoVA is a 1/1 or 2/1 condo that is between 800-1000 square feet, and in NYC, it'd be a 400-foot studio.

[Elizabethan1558]

Agreed. This is why I've begun to investigate Pittsburgh instead of further burdening the forum with my "why can't middle-class singles afford decent housing here?" threads. As I said for me personally the benefits to NoVA (proximity to DC, diversity, ummm....cul-de-sacs and big-box stores?) don't justify the fact that I'll never have my dream life here when I could take a small pay cut and see a huge increase in quality-of-life by moving to a place like Pittsburgh, with nearly all of the benefits DC has at a fraction of the price and congestion. People forget that $70,000 in DC isn't necessarily "better" than $40,000 in Pittsburgh if that $70,000 salary gets you a lousy studio or 1-BR condo in a far-flung part of DC/NoVA while a $40,000 salary gets you your very own fixer-upper historic rowhome in the heart of an up-and-coming Pittsburgh neighborhood like the Mexican War Streets in a neighborhood that feels rooted instead of transitional, or, in my case, "cartoonish."
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Amen Reston Runner,amen