Property values

One of the things I liked about walking around the Valley They Call Silicon was monitoring real estate prices. You’d see a For Sale sign go up, note the million-dollar price tag, and then the next day (or, generally at most, the next couple of days) you’d see the triumphant SOLD placard.

Almost always the purchase price would be more than the asking price.

Almost never did you see the dreaded “Price Reduced” addition. That inevitably denoted a complete pesthole like this one.

Well, I was walking around the town of Vienna (Virginia) at the weekend and came across this rather sad sign:

Almost as though owner-agent Terry Douglas just couldn’t bear to put that notification that all her high hopes have been dashed.

Here’s the domicile in question, a palais de pretension (yes, I made that up that franglais expression) if ever I’ve seen one:

It turns out that, after four months on the market, Terry has lowered the price (“huge reduction”, according to the online listing) by $30,000. To $1,569,000.

Yeah, okay, it’s 6000 square feet. With hardwood floors. And really astonishingly ugly cabinetry in the 4.5 bathrooms and the kitchen.

But what I find interesting that the listing shows it as having been built in 2015, and the last sale of the property was 1 July 2014, at $620,000.

Which means that the last sale was of the house that formerly occupied the property, which was then demolished to make way for this ludicrous monstrosity. And, in fact, one of the online listings shows the previous structure, with a surprisingly frank description:

It’s definitely unprepossessing, but I’m not sure that the new house is all that much of an improvement. And apparently househunters agree with me.