Once a Reston resident

Not exactly Reston weather

This is a picture of the church we used to attend when we lived in Canada.

I recently did a post, Feel the crunch  of the snow, where I talked about how different Canadian snow is from snow in southwest Virginia.

That post reminded me of a few people in the Reston area who are always rooting for snow storms.

There's nothing wrong with liking snow.  I used to enjoy cross country skiing and snowshoeing. 

There are few things nicer than cross country skiing on a few inches of pristine fresh snow on top of a groomed snow road.

The problem with snow in Reston and any city for that matter is that the snow not only doesn't come down pristine, it also gets nasty pretty quickly.

Much of that has to do with the temperature.  This morning Cape Carteret where we have a second home was below freezing for a few hours.  We made it above freezing by 8:30 am.  We are close to 50F just before noon.  Even Reston is at 37F.

Cape Carteret probably had six or seven hours of below freezing temperatures last night which is a lot for us. Fredicton, which is not as cold as Tay Creek where we lived, will not even make it half way from zero to freezing today.

That likely means that even snow in the sunshine will not melt. If you are in the far north with few cars and little heavy industry, that kind of snow can stay very pretty for extended periods of time.

That is especially the case when you often have two to six inches of flurries three or four days a week.  They did not even bother plowing our roads unless we got over six inches of snow.

The winter snow was not slick, in fact traction was great.  You could also slide into a snow bank with almost no damage to your car.

Most people kept blankets or a sleeping bag in their pickups (farm country)  along with a chain.  If you saw someone stuck along the road, you would always stop to haul them out.

I am sorry that my snow loving Reston friends haven't had a significant snow this year.  You certainly are one of the few places that haven't gotten a big storm.  I am sure there are some places that would ship you some snow.

Just don't send it through the ports down here on the NC Crystal Coast.  I do not want to risk anything derailing those 70 degree temperatures scheduled for early next week.

Reston and the housing market

I snapped this shot of shrimp boats at anchor today near Swansboro, NC. 

When I was taking the picture, I was reminded of some clients who sold their two homes and have purchased a sailboat which they plan to use as a home for the next five years.

The three shrimp boats are still actively plying the waters of the North Carolina coast so they are not available as homes for Northern Virginia residents who are having trouble meeting their mortgages.

I just read the Post article, Housing Rut Derails Host Of Dependents. It is probably not news to anyone that the downturn in the real estate market is causing problems across the country and across industries.

As someone who helped buy a home in the Reston area, I know what a hot market looks like.  I was amazed how difficult it was to get a home.

As a new Realtor® working in Cape Carteret, NC, I can certainly feel the pain of others in this market.  It seems like I spend money and see very little come back into my bank account.

I became a Realtor® with open eyes, but also with the hope that it might be a field where a little age was appreciated.  That is certainly not the case in some technology companies.

The real estate industry is full of older people.  It offers you a place where you can work at your own speed and where people are responsible for their own results.  It isn't a bad deal in a good market.

In a down market, it is tough.  Most real estate agents are like me, independent contractors.  We make no salary, get no benefits, and we actually pay to have a desk and to have access to MLS systems.

It ends up costing a fair amount just to be a Realtor® each month whether or not you sell anything. Still it is a choice I made, and eventually I think it will be a good choice.

Our coastal market was once just as hot as the Reston market.  Now it has cooled substantially and since the first of the year, buyers have been waiting to make a move.

No more are we faced with a market so hot that properties are sold before people can even get emails about them read.  Now we have buyers who look at lots of homes, hoping to find the perfect one.

After a while in real estate, you learn there is no perfect home.  The best you can do is find the one with the least number of compromises.

Reston is a strong housing market, it will be back long before our coastal one.

Still it is interesting to see the differences.  If Reston had some of our properties, they would probably sell out overnight.

I imagine single family homes with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, 1600 square ft. on .38 lot within 7 miles of the beach would sell fairly well in Reston at $199,900.

Of course it is impossible to have a home like that in Reston.  Where we are have plenty of them waiting to be sold.

Today I even saw a sound front home on one acre, 2400 square ft, with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths at $699,000.  We even walked around a waterfront cottage of around 1,600 square ft. that has a listing price of $295,000.

I haven't checked out Reston's prices recently, but I remember well that at one time you were lucky to find anything but townhouses in $400K to $500K range.

It is a little ironic that our "vacation" area on the coast has more affordable homes than Reston.

Reston and Northern Virginia have far more jobs which means it is likely housing would cost more. also the coast is home area of choice, people chose to live there and rarely transferred there because of a job.  People also retire there and sometimes don't even need jobs so if homes get too expensive, you just do not live there. In Reston if homes are too expensive, you take on a longer commute.

Surprisingly our area has traditionally not been an area of huge homes. There are some but most of the homes in the area are from 1,600 to 2,400 square ft.

As a real estate agent fully aware of supply and demand, I know that housing in the Reston area is bound to be more expensive.  Land just isn't available like it is here on the coast.  While waterfront properties are little challenging to find, we still have lots of pine forest for less expensive homes.

I think is  pretty close to bottom of the price drops.  I recently sold a 2,500 square ft. home for $350K.  It was in a nice water access community and came with a boat lift.  The home had sold for $345K new a little over four years ago.

That basically means the real estate bubble has seen most of its air disappear.

Prices have been reset, though there are still some buyers holding onto pipe dreams.

I will look forward to prices in Reston stabilizing and moving forward.  That might be the sign that our market is headed back towards normal times.

In the meantime there is lots of work to be done, especially making sure that Coastal NC is well known before people start making their retirement decisions.

The good news is that all my technology buddies are doing a great job of coming up with new tools.

I just brought up a new website today about Coastal Carolina.  It was the easiest one I have ever done and has the most features out of the box.  I am truly impressed.

I am thankful that some folks are making my job easier.  In a tough market, anything that makes your job easier is welcome.

Of course living in a great place where there are lots of reasons to be happy does not hurt either.

It ends up being easy to be hopeful for the future when the scenery can restore your soul.

What makes a place feel like home?

A view like this from our back deck can make you feel like you are home.  But often it takes more than a view to make a place really seem like home.

During most of my corporate career I traveled a lot.  We lived in Roanoke, Va for over eighteen years. 

Much of that time I was driving up Interstate 81 and spending time in Reston at Apple's office beside the Dulles Toll Road.

Eventually I got to the point that I could no longer take staying in a hotel.  It did not matter how fancy the hotel happened to be.  I just wanted something that did not change and felt like home.

I was lucky in that my oldest daughter graduated about that time, and we rented a two bedroom apartment in McLean.  The first summer my son came up and slept on the living room floor so he could do an intern job.

It wasn't too long before my daughter bought a three bedroom townhouse in Reston.  That became my second home. The smallest bedroom became mine temporarily.  I could leave clothes and toiletries three.  I didn't have to make reservations, and I got to spend time with my Northern Va. family.

While having a bed and my own space was a huge step towards home, having familiar surroundings outside the home also plays a big part in making an area feel like home.

In today's world more often than not the stores are same, only the people change.  Still there are differences.  I used to enjoy an occasional visit to Reston Kabob.  There were many nights when we would meet for dinner at Marie's at South Lakes Plaza. Marie's which has been gone a while was a family kind of place.  They knew me since I would grab lunch there also at least once a week.

Beyond the restaurants there were the grocery stores since I always cooked my own breakfast and tried to a cook a meal or two when I was visiting.  I used to frequent the Giant on North Shore.  It was small and sometimes even ran out of chicken breast or hamburger, but I could get in and out of there in a couple of minutes.

Of course having a Books a Million and a Barnes Noble was like having a dream come true to a reading addict.

Still my favorite spot was Whole Foods.  While I enjoyed Trader Joe's, I often marveled at the plants and exotic foods that made it to the shelves of Whole Foods.  Some of the things I enjoyed from Whole Foods became such a part of my routine that I would load a cooler up with ice and take them home to Roanoke.

The other night we were headed from Roanoke to Cape Carteret to find some warmth, and I was on a mission.  I wanted to find the Whole Foods in Cary, NC.  It did not take a lot of effort.  It was  just a  short distance from where 64E run into US1 N.

When we turned into the parking lot late that evening part of me felt like I was home in Reston.

It was a good feeling finding some familiar things that had long been absent from my routine.  I was saddened to find that Icelandic Salmon no longer makes it to Whole Food's cases, but there was no shortage of good things that could be replacements. 

It was a great experience aside from having to drag my wife out of the orchids at the front of the store.  She was overwhelmed.

As much as well known stores and a house with your things can help make a place field like home, routine and rhythm also play a part.

Every place has a different rhythm.  Synchronizing yourself with it makes you feel part of the place.

In Reston, traffic is one of the key rhythms. You learn to structure your life around the traffic jams.  Timing what you do according to traffic flow becomes second nature.  You go to lunch when you know you can find a parking place.

In Roanoke ice and storms in the winter immediately restructure people's lives.  If you live on a steep hill, you know when the sun will melt the ice and likely what time in the afternoon that it will refreeze.  You make plans around those times.  Some roads you just avoid when ice is prevalent.

In Cape Carteret, we are even closer to the elements. Weather is a big topic just like it used to be when we lived on a farm in Canada.  When the weather is good or there is beautiful sunset on tap, you will find people making time to enjoy it.

Beyond that the shifting regularity of the times for high and low tides often adds structure to our lives. We are in place with lots of water spread very thinly so it makes sense for people to know when low tide will arrive.

Finally it takes people to make you feel at home.  In Reston I had family and an office family.  Most weekends I was home so my church family and other friends remained in Roanoke.

Now that we are in Cape Carteret, I have an office family, a church family, and a neighborhood which is southern enough that I actually know several of the my neighbors.  We have also started making some other friends.  It's pretty easy to do here on the coast.

The stores here are pretty different from Reston and Roanoke.   We do have an Ace and a Lowe's Home Improvement, but there is no Giant and no Kroger (the Roanoke grocery store of choice).  And the closest Whole Foods is about 2.5 hours away.

Yet I do believe that the most important thing in making a home is your mindset.  If you want to find the good in place you will find it.

My Giant on North Shore and Marie's are gone.  Reston will never feel like the same home again.  I have changed also, and my office family is long gone.

Even in Roanoke, my neighborhood Ace Hardware disappeared. We recently visited our favorite inexpensive restaurant, the Pancake House, and they were closed temporarily due to the lack of help.  Roanoke might never be the same home again either. It has changed along with me.

So we cannot depend on stores to make a home for us, we have to put our trust in our own minds to build our homes with the pieces that we find and our own changed realities.

Sometimes we move and have to regroup the pieces, but it can be a very positive experience.  Change is constant, and you can always go home if you carry part of it with you in your head and look for the good in your new surroundings.

Maybe that mindset is why I have managed to be happy for so long.

Something you won't see in Reston

It was always a subtle transition in topography for me when I came to Reston. I would leave Roanoke where I was surrounded with mountains and drive up Interstate 81.

When I cut across on Interstate 64 there would be a brief crossing of the mountains and then they would be gone fading into the hilly terrain that followed me to Reston.

By the next morning I would be comfortable not seeing my familiar mountains in the distance.

Not being in the mountains had some advantages.  In Reston the sun didn't drop behind the mountain and bring shadows well before sunset.

This weekend high winds hit Roanoke.  They fanned a fire rumored to have been started by an ATV.  The winds turned the fire into a major forest fire which you can see fourteen to fifteen miles away in the picture at the top of the post.

While the mountains make you feel safe from the problems of large cities and dense populations, they have their own challenges.  Fire is always a scary possibility and heavy rains often get concentrated in the valley bottoms and end up causing flooding.

Reston gets its fair share of traffic, but there probably haven't been major roads closed by smoke from forest fires.

At the coast we can often see the smoke of controlled forest fire burns in the distance, but mostly we worry about water and winds.

I suspect the major worry in Reston is traffic. I guess that is a measure of how much the urban life has brought nature under its sway.