Ok, so it’s been a couple of weeks since my last entry on house-hunting. I’d mentioned then we’d be scouring the I-95 corridor…

Well, nix that idea. Every time I think of commuting up that nightmare stretch of road, I get the shakes and want to vomit. Spending nearly a quarter of my day stuck in a metal cocoon (even if it is a SUV) with other hapless souls just sucks a bit more life out of me.

So I put my foot down. We’re gonna pass. Even the allure of half-price housing just doesn’t do it for me. The fuel cost alone would even out the mortgage savings.

That issue settled, we instead spent some time looking along the Fairfax County Parkway corridor (aka “Rt 7100” for you locals who think it’s a speedway).

Yes, yes, we’ll look at DC at some point, it’s on the list (looks at Wayan).

We’ve found nothing but depressing sites (save one corner lot). My question is to these faceless foreclosed souls is a simple one, really. Were you THAT greedy a few years back that you bought well above your means to the point that you had to play landlord for a bit? And did you ever hear about “tenant screening”? Using Craigslist doesn’t count, period. My God, these homes looked so abused and malformed… If they were children, I would’ve sworn we were in a Third World country.

I know that if you are trying to short sale, you think it excuses you from cleaning up the place. It doesn’t. It only makes me want to smack you and dissuades me from even considering your house as a viable purchase to save you from the bank. My sympathy turns from your hard-luck case to the sad state of your former home.

And I don’t have the extra $$$ to spend on cleaning up and re-fixing the house.

Good thing we have time to be picky. I’d hate to be doing this with only a month or two to find something.

What about you? Are you more inclined to consider a place that’s at least clean (or attempted as such)? Or is there something worse that turns you off a potential home sale?

For Sale, courtesy of PhotoDu.de

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs