How can they do that?

There’s more than a few properties listed in Manassas Park with missing electric meters.

I go to a great dentist in the office building behind the VRE in the Park. I think the are the sole occupants of the building. I understand the limited square mileage aspect. The City of Falls Church also has an outrageous tax rate too, but they’ve had a commercial base for years. FC probably ranks second only to the Park.

I think VRE will become more sought after as fuel prices continue to rise. Growing up here there was no public trasportion of any kind in PWC. VRE should be an attractive selling point for the area.

I can’t imagine there’s too many houses in the Park selling for $540K. I’m doubting the price you stated. I just think there are very few houses in the Park that would be worthy of such a price given the market now a days.

The expansion of the VRE is key to bringing residents to PWC. I do not see any office buildings coming to the area anything soon. All the new buildings along 28 and 267 in Fairfax and Loundon are empty.

AnonRE is a wealth of information. Did you know in Manassas Park they require they utilities to be on when a property is listed? This burden falls on the realtor often.

Excellent point regarding the tax rate in the Park. Any idea where the Park ranks in the state with the RE tax rate? I believe the are very near the top of the list.

We’ve had a few new owners move in on my block.

AnonRE,
I’m to glad to see you are back. Would you mind eleborating on some of the hoops you have to jump through as a realtor in the Park?

That might have been me warning about the dead cat bounce a few months ago. I’m betting that prices are still going to drop another 10% before the year is over. There are too many balloon mortgages scheduled to revert to the higher payments in the next two months, causing more foreclosures over the next six months, putting more houses on the market. I’m keeping my investment in a gold fund until I feel we’ve really hit bedrock, then I’ll snap up a couple of units in my neighborhood and rent them to real, boner fide legal residents who want to contribute something to this fine country.

I just wanted to say it is refreshing to see an intelligent thread here for a change.

I would like to add that I believe that Manassas Park is going to be the LAST place that investors will look.

The simple reason is the tax rate is so much higher here than in PWC that investors would see their profits going to a tax bill in MP so for once I guess I am happy the tax rate is higher.
Really it is just a dumb consequence but if we have owners instead of renters as Dolph said this gives us a bit of a tighter knit community by attracting those that are thus invested in the community.

Also I would mention having the VRE here in MP may help at some point , with MP doing better as fuel costs rise and VRE access as a selling oint however I forsee the new construction behind the VRE and over at Park center reaping those benefits before any owners on Belmont station or Mosely and so forth.

Thanks

I am pleased to learn that first time homebuyers are taking advantage of the fire sale here in PWC. I would much rather see families buying than investors. We all know where things go once a neighborhood becomes mainly investor-owned.

You hit the nail on the head by suggesting that dropping prices and additional homes hitting the market be factored in to this equation. Simple number of houses sold per month is only the tip of the iceberg and certainly does not tell the entire story about what has happened to our community.

I, for one, do not feel that we have quite the rosy real estate picture as portrayed in this thread. ‘7000 foreclosures and rising’ doesn’t bode well anywhere.

I agree with you , we are selling them yes, but amazingly cheap. Besides the cheap price tag there are also a lot of closing costs paid by the seller on a lot of these.

We are seeing multiple offers on a lot of houses throughout the county including Manassas Park and Manassas City. Houses are selling but right behind one sold is another one in our listing inventory (actually usually 2 or 3). Things look better in terms of sales but the prices are dropping and the volume of homes new to the market are continuing to increase right now.

Good news is that most of these homes are going to very excited first time homebuyers that can finally get out of renting.

Funny that because you want to know someone’s personal business that you call the Realtor lazy.

Just curious, where is your justification for this?

I could have bought in Fairfax, however PWC is on the right track to make my investment only go up.

Being able to work from home was a minor factor in my decision.

They can’t even arrange for paths leading to the largest HOV lot in the county. People have to sloth through mud and the Parkway get to the Slug lines. People wonder why so many drive…… because there is not any safe alternative.

You can’t even hop a bus in PWC and get to Ft Belvoir or even the Springfield Metro.

errrrrrr

The house across the street from me and the house next door to me were bought by immigrants who filled their homes with criminal invaders. They tore the place apart, had very loud parties that started at 11 PM and went on until 4 AM (when I would call the cops), used their yard as a toilet, drove across lawns, and got puking drunk in public. I did the happy dance when their homes were foreclosed.

The folks behind me were also immigrants. They were friendly, took excellent care of the place, and I was shocked and saddened when they couldn’t hold onto to their home.

The home next to me sold, again to Hispanic immigrants. They are friendly, quiet, and have been working hard to make the place a home to be proud of. They finally moved in this evening and I have never heard anyone move so quietly! The house is a bit on the small side, but they say that’s fine because there will only be three of them living there. I don’t know how it will be living next to them, but getting to know them as they have been working these past two weeks have been a joy! If things go as they have been, I will really like these new neighbors.

BTW, please notice how I refer to illegal aliens. The apologists say the tern “illegal alien” is too harsh, and refers to them as “undocumented workers”. I say “illegal alien” is too soft and inaccurate, and will henceforth call them what they are–”criminal invaders”.

I am waiting to see how much it sold for. We are fortunate that we only had 2 foreclosures on our street and we live in the 22191 zip code. We were shocked that there were not more on our street.

Believe me when my new neighbors move in I will be bringing them a basket of brownies a pitcher of lemonade and a list or a chat of expectations on how we maintain our neighborhood and how we help out a few of our seniors and special needs neighbors.

With new people moving in its time we roll out the old welcome wagon of years ago! If we just let people move in with out greeting our new neighbors and chatting with them for a few minutes we are dooming ourselves to repeat the past!

I don’t know where you got this notion that anyone intended to “run out immigrant neighbors”, but that is not the motivation of anyone I know. What folks wanted to do was get something done about absolutely rampant residential overcrowding, MS-13 gang activity and plenty of other unlawful behavior that was happening partly as a result of an influx of illegal aliens. By discouraging the unlawful presence of illegal aliens, neighborhoods that were under severe pressure, such as my own, have started to bounce back enormously.

It will take time for the glut of unoccupied single family residences to get bought up, but because we don’t have multiple flophouses on ever block, MS-13 graffiti, and frequent problems with criminal activity in these neighborhoods to the same degree we had before, these neighborhoods are attractive to buyers again. Nothing improves a residential community better than a good, safe neighborhood, and we’re seeing that once again.

I think there are plenty of people that want to live somewhere where the streets are safe, the community looks good, and the police aren’t rushing there every evening. As long as the neighborhood is safe and clean, I don’t care where the heck the folks came from, as long as they comply with the law and don’t make a nuisance of themselves. My neighbors don’t all look like me, and I couldn’t care less whether they do or not as long as they’re not harboring fifteen illegals and throwing trash out their windows into the side yard, for example.

I really doubt that the house will go for anywhere near $10,000.

Two townhouses in Belmont Station in MP have recently sold for $150,000.

As for the rest of your comments, many of the foreclosed houses are the result of mortgage fraud.