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?