Isn’t about time for the bubble to burst??

An article in today’s Washington Post tells us that property values in my beloved Arlington have gone up yet again. Up by 24 percent, in fact, in just one year. Looking across the last three years puts the jump at a whopping 70 percent increase.

70 percent?!? That’s nuts!!

Of course, we’ve all known this was happening. I live in a small, two-bedroom, one-bathroom rowhouse with an unfinished basement. All the houses in my neighborhood are identical in layout to mine (although some have finished basements with an extra bath). In the five years I’ve lived here, I’ve seen the resale value of these little boogers shoot up from around $200,000 to nearly $400,000! I couldn’t even afford to buy the front yard if I tried.

All I can say is, Thank God I did not try to buy a place, because I’d probably be living either in BFE or a slum in the city right now. Honestly, I don’t understand how people are affording these insane housing prices.

Another trend I’ve noticed in Arlington is the practice of destroy & build. Instead of fixing up or remodeling older houses, buyers are instead tearing them down completely and building new-fangled, gigundous homes.

I might understand this a little better if there were structural flaws in the homes. Sometimes, it can be less expensive to build anew rather than to fix and add-on. However, I can’t imagine this is the case in all these new homes.

Is this just a DC bubble, or is this happening back in the homestead as well?

Got off my lazy butt yesterday and went to see a movie I had been dying to see–“Sideways.” I mean, a movie made over a backdrop of wine tasting? (But not, as Gus insisted to me, a movie about wine!) Should have been a dream movie!

I say “should have” because it fell far, far short of my expectations.

Though I thought Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church both give great performances, the story left me feeling, I don’t know, bored? Disinterested? Not giving a rat’s a$$ about what happened to the characters?

Sure, I was rooting for Giamatti’s character to snap out of his funk, even though you know his low self esteem can probably never recover. And I hated Church’s womanizing, deceptive, B-list actor. But I didn’t feel strongly enough about either to really care how it all ended up.

Apparently, I’m not alone in my disappointment: A.O. Scott in the New York Times this weekend dubbed the movie “The Most Overrated Film of the Year.”

At least one scene, however, really drew me in: Virginia Madsen’s soulful character gives a monologue about why she loves wine; it’s enough to make anyone look at their next bottle just a little differently. But the moment is short and fleeting, nipped by more attention to the schlubby main character, Miles, and his insecurities.

My advice? Wait for the DVD.