Teardown activity is currently on the decline in Arlington (the county granted 158 single-family home demolition permits in 2017, down from 204 in 2015, according to a study by Preservation Arlington) but it’s still more pervasive than it was a decade ago. Some buyers see it as the most direct route to getting everything they want in a house—aesthetics, functionality and energy efficiency—without the headaches of retrofitting.
New builds are, by and large, more expensive. (At press time, a 4,800-squarefoot, 5-bedroom house, with basement, by Spring Street Development in Waverly Hills was listed for $1.75 million.) There’s a sweet spot that renovations can fill, notes Chris Clark, a senior loan officer with MVB Mortgage—specifically, the middle ground between an $800,000 mortgage for an older home and a mortgage of $1.5 million (or more) for a brand-new one. “Renovation can get a family a house that’s bigger than what they have, but still smaller, in terms of size and mortgage payments, than [new homes] on the market,” he says.
Meanwhile, the debate over which approach is best—for individual buyers and for the community as a whole—continues, at the kitchen table and in county meetings. “Anything that impacts single-family areas, you will get a groundswell of people involved in those conversations,” says county planning director Williamson.
“We need to be thoughtful and careful about what we do in the future.”
Tamara Lytle is a freelance writer based in Northern Virginia. She has written about homelessness, ADHD and real estate for Arlington Magazine.