Archive for the 'Reston Condos' Category

I don’t know if the large number of townhomes in Reston is unique to our area or not. or not; I’ve only lived in a few places over my life so I don’t have a good basis for comparison. Clearly it is a part of Reston living with close to a 140 separate townhouse clusters. These clusters are wildly varied from the comfortable and modest to over-the-top luxurious. Of course the one feature that they all have in common is the proximity an owner shares with their neighbor. For those of you who haven’t lived in a townhouse the proximity issue isn’t necessarily about hearing things through common walls so much as it is about the general feeling of others being close by—not a bad thing for many.

The perfect size yard

What does Reston offer?

What Reston townhouses do offer is a wide range of housing options for almost every price point. There are currently 109 townhouses for sale in Reston ranging in price from 150,000 – 990,000. My husband and I moved to a townhouse as a part of our downsizing. The kids were gone the house was more than we wanted to care for;so we moved to a three level townhouse with a beautiful postage stamp sized yard on Lake Anne.  We loved it.  Not only was there a lot less to care for, we loved the since of community that comes when you live in such close proximity to others.

We enjoyed the frequent sidewalk chats with neighbors and the feeling that we kept an eye out for one another; it’s a nice way to live.  We’ve since moved to a condo where that feeling of community is even more pronounced.  Last years’ snow storms gave rise to several spontaneous pot luck dinners, board game parties and neighbors helping to dig out one another’s cars.

If you’ve never considered a townhouse or condo in Reston because you’ve worried about living in such close proximity, maybe you should reconsider, there is a lot of upside to this housing style.

It seems like such a simple thing. The phone rings, you answer. The person on the other end says they found you on the internet and are interested in working with a Reston specialist. “That’s me! How can I help you?”

The Devil’s in the Details…

Long story short, the buyers wanted a one or two bedroom condo in the Reston Town Center area for under $400,000 This was to be a kind of pied-à-terre that they would use during the week while in town for business. Great, I can do this, I can find them a great place. We continue to talk about what they liked and what they were hoping for and then comes the deal changer—dogs, not one but two and they’re large dogs, over 50 pounds of loving fun.

Scout

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of dogs, my husband and I share our condo with two French Bulldogs. We started with Scout and then a few months later decided to add Boo. Because I’m active in my condo I knew that we had a pet policy that called for one pet per household and that in order to get an exception I would have to make a case to the Board of Directors before we added the second pup.

Condo Living does mean Rules

Boo

Before I took my pooch loving buyers out I started making calls to the Town Center properties. Every condominium had slightly different rules regarding pet ownership. It ranged from a strict 1 pet per unit, to 1 dog and 1 cat or 2 cats, to 2 pets no weight restrictions. Some properties have breed restrictions. I was so glad that I took the time to make the calls before showing property, it would have been disastrous to find the perfect property only to realize that “Rover” wasn’t welcome.

Home Owner’s Associations, Townhouse Clusters and Condo living does mean more rules. They can be anything from not being allowed to park your boat or RV on the street to not being able to own any pets–get the scoop up front to save from being disappointed later.