Friday, October 05, 2007

Carry me Back to Old Virginny

We're visiting suburban Virginia this weekend for a friend's wedding in DC. A few inconsequential thoughts:

1. Every time we come back here, we are reminded of what it's like to go to sleep to the din of crickets,

2. The housing market is in serious trouble here. This is one of the richest parts of the country, and yet there are a startling number of foreclosures. I never really understood how the housing market affects everything else, but our friends' grocery store is losing a lot of money too, which makes sense: when you're trying to hold on to your house, you buy groceries at the cheapo places,

3. I've never seen "wretched excess" like they have here- behemoth houses on tiny lots with four or five SUVs parked in front. One of which has a vanity licence plate reading "SHOPPR".

4. I hate going to malls, and yet, I am perfectly happy spending time with Claire in a mall. It's hard to believe.

4 comments:

Brian Dunbar said...

This is one of the richest parts of the country, and yet there are a startling number of foreclosures.

Northern Virginia is also a very expensive place to buy a house - the house I own in small-town Wisconsin couldn't had for less than four times what it's worth here. Yet my salary would not nearly cover that expense.

What I'm saying is that the cost of living certainly has something to do with the rate of foreclosures. I've heard a lot of noise _about_ the foreclosure rate but it does not seem to be an issue, here.

Holly said...

If I didn't already know that we (me, and you guys) are all booked up, all weekend, I'd nearly suggest meeting up. I, too, am in Olde Northeren Virginae, rockin' it suburban style.

I was surprised to see that, where my old roommates live (they both have townhouses in the same development), there are units for sale in every group, and about half are foreclosures. The surprising upside to this is the sudden availability of parking. I do wonder, though, where those people went...?

somaieh said...

hah! so this is super creepy. i totally had a dream last night where i told henry, "yeah, rufus is coming back for a visit."

(leaving aside the fact that neither of us are currently in va)

Rufus said...

Brian- that's definitely true. None of the people that I know in upstate NY have had these problems. Northern Virginia is sort of its own little world anyway.

Holly- My friend told me that out in Culpepper, there were about 8 foreclosures listed last month- they usually have about 3 or 4 a year. And that means that more are still in the pipeline because it takes about a year for a foreclosure to go through.

Somaieh- it's good to hear from you. I think about you and Aaron Henry frequently. How are you doing these days?