What was supposed to be a boon for home buyers, especially first time home buyers, has fallen flat.  Many folks out there trying to buy houses are being squeezed out of the housing market by cash laden investors.  Even those bidding more than asking price are not getting called back. 

The investors are paying cash and buying ‘as is’ at discount prices.  No regular buyer who needs financing and inspections can compete with the cash-rich investors.  Investors are also back to flipping houses.  The buy-fix up- resell cycle has begun again. 

The down side for those of us who aren’t even trying to buy a house is that those foreclosures will now become rental property.  It is no secret that neighborhoods with a disproportionate number of rental properties goes downhill much faster than where homes are owned by the occupants. 

According to the Washington Post:

“There are bidding wars out there. It’s like the 2005 market but at discount prices,” said Stella Barbour, a real estate agent at Jobin Realty in Northern Virginia. “I put in offers for my clients only to find there are already multiple offers. They always choose the one that’s all cash.”

Some of these cash-only investors use their own money to buy properties, while others borrow it at high interest rates from other private sources.

Chris “CC” Cormack, an investor, said she used her own money to beat out four other offers and buy a townhouse in Ashburn this year. The home, a foreclosure, was listed for $214,500, and she got it for $220,000. Cormack fixed it up and sold it a few months later for a sizable profit.

“It had been under contract twice before, and both of those loans fell apart,” said Cormack, who is also a real estate agent. “By the time I came along with all-cash offer, the bank said, ‘I’ll take it.’ They did not want to take a chance on the deal falling apart again.”

Many of the real estate practices are happening right here in Prince William County:

Investors have reemerged with brute force in the Washington region’s real estate market over the past few months, triggering bidding wars in some neighborhoods teeming with foreclosed properties and hindering traditional home buyers such as Melissa Diggins.

Diggins and her fiance, George Mills, made a dozen offers on houses in Prince William County but lost more than half of them to investors making all-cash offers.

Frustrated, they gave up their search for a new home, convinced that they could not compete.

“We thought to ourselves: ‘Enough is enough,’ ” said Diggins, a graphic designer. “We’d sometimes offer more than the asking price and we wouldn’t even get a call back.  It was crazy.”

A year or so ago we heard several commentators singing the praises of the Prince William County Real Estate market. They spoke of how things were snapping back and how new families were moving in, returning the neighborhoods to the pastoral  scenes before the ‘illegals’ came to town. In the first place, many of the foreclosures were not illegal immigrants or even Latino families.  They were families who simply had bitten off more than they could chew.  This new situation truly reminds us of being careful what we wish for.  Homeowner occupancy is generally always superior to a neighborhood of rental units when it comes to homeowner upkeep and the general conditions of the community. One can expect both cities to be undergoing the same real estate situation.

83 Thoughts to “The Ugly Side of the Real Estate Market”

  1. Lafayette

    oops.. that DON’T blog about it. My point being we don’t always know how works to improve their community.

  2. Lafayette

    I give up. Don’t always know WHO. I’m just very frustrated with the some of the comments on this thread. I think it’s time to a break from Anti all together.

  3. Lafayette, I respect GR’s true & factual accounts of the past & not disputing his right to talk about what happened to him. It’s the present day statements like “unfortunately it is trending towards being just as bad a place as…” and “Maybe the City police will have to set up a substation there” that I think are inaccurate, when I know that members of Point of Woods just went through Neighborhood Watch training at the police department on Nov. 30. There are positive things happening today. I had to say something in defense of people I have seen working to make their city neighborhoods better and their community partners.

  4. Poor Richard

    Lafayette-
    You may want to reread post #37 – the intention of it was to note that
    neigborhoods with similiar demographics and age/cost of housing stock
    were impacted in similiar ways by the real estate boom-bust regardless of
    the jurisdiction. I used a comparison of a PWC neighborhood and one in
    Loudoun, in part, to illustrate the infamous PWC “resolution” ended up
    having less impact than some seem to think. Other factors took a much
    larger role.

  5. Poor Richard

    Agree with Cindy B. that progress is being made in GTS, Point of Woods
    and other neigborhoods in Manassas and PWC when
    people work together – residents, HOAs,local government, the faith
    community and other NGOs, etc.
    I thank Cindy for the part she does to help our area become a better
    place to live.

  6. GainesvilleResident

    I’m sorry, but I’m just pointing out the truth about Point of Woods. I lived next to a house full of 10-15 people that the HOA could care less about, and after awhile neither did the city. One of those residents actually broke into MY house and stole a lot of stuff, and then fled. Sorry if I’m more than a bit bitter about Point of Woods, and I don’t see what posting on this blog is going to hurt. For one thing, if posting here is going to somehow cause Point of Wood’s rep to suffer – that’s really a stretch. I’m not denigrating this blog, but I highly doubt one person’s posting their views or opinions is going to make or break a neighborhood’s reputation.

    Again, you haven’t walked in my shoes, or lived next to what I lived next to. Music blasting at 3 AM in the morning. Yes, I called the police a few times, but then they’d just start up again a few days later. After awhile, I figured the police had better things to do at 3 AM in the morning than waste time going after noise violations.

    Anyway, i just think that’s a lot of nerve trying to silence someone’s views. I’ve seen many MUCH MORE NEGATIVE things about PWC posted here by some posters – how come you have not called them out???????? Kind of hypocritic, don’t you think? Apparently posts about PWC’s negative reputation is OK by you.

    And, I was also trying to point out statistics, to correct this idea that somehow the resolution caused all these foreclosures. My point is, Point of Woods would have had the same number of foreclosures (an extremely high number) irregardless of the resolution. So would other neighborhoods actually in PWC and not in the city.

    By the way, I tried for awhile cleaning up the neighborhood as I went on walks, but after awhlie I felt like I was holding my finger in the dam – I could pick up some broken beer bottles and the next day find just as many if not more.

    My neighbors constantly tossed their huge piles of garbage onto my lawn for collection, starting right after the collection day. Complaints to Point of Woods HOA were met with silence, other than their repeated newsletters saying “don’t put out trash on non-collection days”.

    Anyway, this is a small sample.

    But, to try and silence me or say I should not post my true experiences about Point of Woods because it will somehow hurt the neighborhood’s rep – that’s really a stretch!

    Enough said.

  7. The point of this thread was to give people an opportunity to discuss the local real estate market. Prince William County has had more than its fair share of hits on this subject. For starters, it has had the dubious honor of being the top foreclosure county in the entire state. There has been much speculation and discussion as to why.

    I feel certain that Lafayette didn’t like having her community smeared all over the media for a stabbing last Friday night. You city folks sure didn’t tiptoe around Westgate like you are doing Point of Woods. Was that because it was in the county? Sorry, I am just not the proprietary about county or city. It’s the Manassas area. Other side of the county is the Woodbridge area.

    Gainesville has not been impolite. He described what happened in his neighborhood and what is still happening over there, at least in the area he is aware of. As long as he is polite, I see no reason to attempt to censor him. Let’s not shoot the messenger. I go through that community often. I do not think he has been untruthful at all. As a homeowner in POW, he has more right than say I do, to criticize.

    Cindy, each of us contributes to society in our own way. Not everyone takes the same path. One of my ways is to keep this blog up and running as a place for people in the community (and outside the community) to share ideas, debate, and to voice their opinions. If someone comes along and tells one of our contributors they shouldn’t talk, that twarts my efforts. Right now I see 2 pissed off people.

    Perhaps a good way to convince Gainesville would be to list the changes that have been made rather than sing about the number of people who got an award for fixing up the neighborhood. If it was in such great shape, why did it need fixing?

    Community do-gooders can fix up all they want. They can plant flowers, paint fences, remove gang graffiti, and remove trash. However, if the neighborhood has flipped over into being a neighborhood of renters rather than homeowners, the probability that the community workers are going to have to come back real soon increases. The broken glass, the 20 people to a house, the bags of trash that sit out all weekend, and the domestic quarrels requiring police intervention will probably continue to happen. That’s just the nature of what happens, statistically. People who aren’t homeowners don’t generally take care of the property and their surroundings as well, especially if the owner of the property is an absentee landlord.

    No place is sacrosanct.

  8. GainesvilleResident

    And by the way, as more salt in the wound – Point of Woods back in the summer sent me a letter of infraction about some junk furniture that the townhouse next to me once again dumped on my front yard several days apparently before trash collection,and attempted to fine me $50 for it. So, sorry if I remain extremely bitter about the neighborhood, and my neighbors who the HOA seems to allow to get away with all sorts of stuff.

  9. The county police set up a substation at WestGate apartments. I believe the neighborhood welcomed them. Additionally, back in the day, single cops rented out an apartment down at Ben Lomond Splash down. Sounds like a good plan to me. High cop visibility in neighborhoods is an excellent idea. It sends a message that police presence is a permanent fixture in the community and it allows people to get to know their neighbors on a non-enforcement basis.

  10. Lafayette

    @Poor Richard
    I thank you for your clarification. Notice I did not tell you what to type. I was sharing my perception.

    I would also, note there are many that are involved with the city, and don’t reside there. In fact, I’m one of those people that was right there by Cindy’s side for Neighborhood Circles from day one. The city does succeed alone, nor does the county. We are one community rather you like be affiliated with the county portion or not, that’s just the way it is. The city doesn’t deserve a bad rep for what happens in the coutny portion, and the same for the county of the things that happen in the city. Unfortunately, it is what is.

  11. GainesvilleResident

    Thanks MH. I just think there’s been comments made about PWC that have been FAR FAR worse than mine about Point of Woods. I also think one person’s comments/opinions isn’t going to make or break a neighborhood’s reputation! People can feel free to ignore my comments if they wish. I lived in Point of Woods for 25 years, and in the last years there I found the HOA to not want to be part of any solution and a rather cliquish group to say the least. Maybe in the year since I’ve moved out of my property there some residents have finally gotten fed up and are trying to do something, if so, that’s great. But as someone who saw police cars on their block at least once a month, and weekly seeing police cars with sirens zooming down Stonewall Road toward Stonewall Park the summer of 2008 to break up gang fights there – it got more than a little depressing. And, having neighbors who could care less about their property, let alone mine, was even more so. For example, the neighbors had so many people in that house they loaded up their deck with a bunch of furniture there was no room for inside the house. Complaints to the HOA went unheeded. I worried the deck would collapse – there was an entire dining room buffet out there (or whatever you would call it that holds plates/china/etc) for 6 months on that deck.

    Maybe if the HOA had seemed to care about things in that townhouse after my constant complaints – I might have had a more positive opinion that back when I was there someone actually gave a care and was trying to solve obvious problems.

    Anyway, I’ve said my piece, but I highly resented the attempt to say that I shouldn’t post what are my own opinions and experiences about Point of Woods. If so, there’s a lot of people here who shouldn’t have posted what they did about PWC!!! A lot much more negative things have been said here about PWC and I don’t see CindyB ever complaining about what they said!

  12. Lafayette

    @cindy b
    We both know there are many dedicated to improving POW, but that’s a fairly new thing. The work being done there now is in large part to the Neighborhood Circles. Those sorts of things were NOT happening when Mr. Gainesville was living there. I’m glad things are improving in many of neighborhoods in both the county and the city. I’m not always convinced of my prior sentence. I’m sure I’m not the Lone Ranger with that thought.

  13. GainesvilleResident

    Finally, as far as protecting my investment – again one person’s comments aren’t going to influence housing values in Point of Woods. And, I tried to get involved in the HOA and was rebuffed a few times. Anyway, my house is going on the market shortly, and as soon as it sells I will no longer have a stake in Point of Woods – which I guess will make people like CindyB happy. However, I’m doing far less damage to Point of Woods than people like the ones who used to live in the townhouse next to me. It finally foreclosed last summer so fortunately those tenants are obviously out of there – I can only assume the new tenants are better – it would not be much of a hurdle to climb. I don’t know, as I haven’t been to Point of Woods since last January since my property rented out and a professional rental company is managing the property. I just haven’t wanted to go back – the last time I went back after having moved out – right before my property got rented – I was personally too depressed by what I saw in regards to the property next to my house and once again – my front yard being used as their dumping ground for trash. 15 people obviously generate HUGE amounts of trash, which cannot fit on one property’s front yard for trash collection!

    The shocking part is the HOA never took any action, other than to publish reminders in the newsletter about not putting out trash on non-trash days, even after I’d call them up and tell them to come over and cite these people for tossing all these bags of trash (some not even tied closed) 2-3 days before collection – and often with them spilling over onto my lawn. In the summer the stench was often very bad – as they seemed to not usually bother to tie their trash bags shut! You can imagine bugs and animals getting into them and making a further mess.

    Well, I could write a book about my experiences the past few years there – but at this point I’ve said my piece.

    I hope Point of Woods improves, but there’s a reason I moved out of there after living there for 25 years – and the reason is all in what I’ve posted above – but mainly what through me over the edge was 3 years of living next to what I lived next to – that the HOA never did anything about an only for a short while did the city do anything about – when I complained non-anonymously to them – before their more strict ordinance was enacted and then de-enacted. After that, the city also showed no interest in fixing the problem next to me – even though 15 residents in a 3 bedroom townhouse is definitely overcrowding. It may not have been the number all the time, but one time the city investigated and did indeed find 15 residents there! At any given time there were at least 10. They ignored the rules for parking cars in the lot, could care less even about parking in my reserved spot. The HOA usually did nothing – or when the tow company did come – these people would run out and move their cars – only a few days later they’d all be back again, including in my reserved numbered spot! The HOA and the towing company just more or less kept giving them a pass – as long as they ran out and moved their cars, they didn’t get towed and thus never learned the lesson not to park more than 2 cars in a space, and more importantly how about not parking in your neighbors numbered space? It was lucky to get a parking spot on the lot – I had only one car and more often than not was forced to park it somewhere on Stonewall Road far far away from my house. One time my car and a bunch of other cars parked on Stonewall Road all got tires slashed and windows smashed. My car would not have been among those if the people next to me hadn’t used up all the spaces in the parking lot, completely disobeying the rule to park one car in a numbered space and only ONE other car in an unnumbered space! Instead, they were allowed to continue to do so, even after complaints by me and another neighbor who also got her tires and windows smashed due to us having to park our car on Stonewall Road.

    Anyway, I could write a book about all kinds of incidents like that. It’s no wonder I got fed up and moved out. My other neighbor – she has a year to go until she retires and she too is looking foward to moving out. She also has been a long time resident of Point of Woods and after awhile felt as powerless as I was to affect any change.

    But, enough said. Anyway, my experiences at Point of Woods give me plenty of justification for my opinions.

    However, at the end of the day they are just one man’s opinions. How posting them on a blog, that as far as I can tell no one else at Point of Woods other than CindyB reads – is going to hurt the reputation of Point of Woods – is really what fired me up here.

    I’ve said what I wanted to say – but it goes back to – far more negative things have been said about PWC that apparently didn’t bother CindyB a bit. I could list some of them, but I won’t. No one seemed concerned about any damage to PWC’s reputation and one could say that this blog has far more of a chance of affecting PWC’s repuatation than Point of Wood’s. Point of Woods is such a small area, and the amount of people reading the blog that would in the end make a decision about living or not living in Point of Woods, and that causing some sea change in the perception of Point of Woods – it is really negligible. Again, I’m not denigrating the blog – my point is this blog just isn’t going to affect perception of Point of Woods. Of PWC – yes, it may have an impact, and also of City of Manassas as a whole. However, I’ve never posted negative things about the City as a whole – in fact in many ways I think it is well run and I always felt my taxes were well spent.

  14. GainesvilleResident

    Lafayette :
    @cindy b
    We both know there are many dedicated to improving POW, but that’s a fairly new thing. The work being done there now is in large part to the Neighborhood Circles. Those sorts of things were NOT happening when Mr. Gainesville was living there. I’m glad things are improving in many of neighborhoods in both the county and the city. I’m not always convinced of my prior sentence. I’m sure I’m not the Lone Ranger with that thought.

    Thanks Lafayette. Yes, things may have started to turn around with people getting involved in POW after I left, and that’s a great thing. However, it is too bad attempts to do that while I was there were ignored – at least by at that time the folks running the HOA. It does seem like there’s been a change in leadership in the HOA recently (noted in a newsletter I got 2 or 3 months ago). That’s a good thing too – I think a change there was very sorely needed. So that’s all good, and I hope it really will improve. It is just too bad it didn’t happen while I was there and at the time both by me and others it was perceived that the HOA didn’t care and attempts to make them care were rebuffed.

  15. Thank you, Gainesville Resident, for acknowledging that things may have started to turn around. I apologize if my words caused resentment, that wasn’t my intent.

  16. Poor Richard

    Note that the population of Prince William County is ten times that of the
    City of Manassas. While the City should acknowledge its own problems,
    it takes an unfair hit when the name Manassas is linked to criminal
    activity in almost 1/2 of PWC. Every community has a right to defend
    itself from unfair and inaccurate negative labeling. (Would love the
    WaPo for once to report a crime in the City of Manassas as
    “in Prince William County” or even “near Prince William County”).

  17. GainesvilleResident

    OK cindy b – and I too maybe got a bit fired up. I have a lot of “history” with Point of Woods – and maybe unlike wines, it hasn’t aged well over time.

    As a former city resident – I know about what Poor Richard says about the city sometimes taking hits for things in PWC. The early instances of the infamous “sign” were an example – it blamed the city for the resolution!! Kind of shocking when a resident of the city doesn’t even make the distinction.

    That being said, I see Lafayette’s point too – that the north side of the city and the part of the county above it sort of run into each other.

    However, there is a problem at times indeed of the press referring to “Manassas” when they really should say PWC. I agree, Washington Post is very guilty of this and if they used the phrasing Poor Richard suggested, it would be great. Washington Post though in my own personal opinion, has not always been the source of “accurate reporting” – especially as I had said way up above about their distortions of statistics to link PWC’s housing crisis to the resolution. I wish I could find the article, but they directly linked it and even quoted some idiot local economist guy – who should have known better if you ask me. I take what Washington Post says (as well as a lot of other news sources) with a grain of salt.

    I often find, anything I have knowledge about, that the Post reports on, is inaccurate. This goes far beyond local stories – it goes to technical articles I have a lot of knowledge about, and articles about places of employment I’ve worked at. They once did a hugely inaccurate negative piece on a former employer of mine – even getting names of people and projects mixed up, and putting a gov’t employee who was the customer as an employee of the company instead. Fact checking? Forget it! And as I said some of their technical articles in the field of computing technology are laughable for their inaccuracies.

  18. PR, I don’t see how it really is a ‘hit.’ Now if it is schools, libraries, or roads that need to be plowed yes. If Lomond Drive isn’t plowed and some dumb wad comes along, blames the City and says Liberia hasn’t been plowed, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. However, people are mobile creatures. If shooting happens on Liberia or on Lomond, I don’t think either locality takes a hit. It is the same road. Shooting people is generally a crime of passion and I doubt if shooters look at boundaries.

    On the Fernandez sign, I agree. The City of Manassas picked up some of the county’s baggage. On the other hand, the City has done some dabbling in matters that might draw the ire of Fernandez also. (rightly or wrongly)

    Mathis Avenue is a convergence of jurisdictions. When over in that neck of the woods, I never figure out where I am. And does it matter to anyone other than fire, rescue and cops?

    I will continue to say I am live in Manassas, even though I live in the county. Everyone needs a place to push a pin in on the map. If pressed, I would say I lived in the county right outside Manassas. But how many people I care. Depending on how far away I go, I have been know to say ‘I live right outside Washington, DC.’ It is all relative.

    I am afraid Lafayette and I are equally inflexible on this issue.

  19. GainesvilleResident

    Yeah, I know in more recent times Fernandez has had a real beef with the City. However, his first sign pissed me off (and probably a lot of other Manassas residents) due to him saying bad things about the City and linking it to the resolution in the same breath. That’s probably one reason I never looked favorably on any of his signs after the first one, and I bet the same is true for a lot of city residents. Fortunately for me I didn’t see the thing on a daily basis since I don’t pass through the Old Town Manassas area daily even when I lived in Point of Woods (most of my daily travels were north and out of PWC such as my commute to work).

    I see your point about Lomond/Liberia. I have a feeling there’s a lot of people in the area that don’t even know the exact dividing line as you travel down Lomond to Liberia where the city and county line are, even though going into the city, it is marked with a sign. Oddly, in the other direction there has never been a sign about entering PWC.

    Unfortunately Manassas got hits for lots of things that happened outside the city borders. Actually, the infamous Bobbit case – it happened OUTSIDE the city limits (and not just over the line either)!! So Manassas got a bad rep for that too. I’m sure it was further confused by the press since the courthouse was inside the city limits, but for awhile I heard more than enough bad jokes about Manassas and that case.

  20. GR, I would say that the Bobbitts certainly did not HURT Manassas or Prince William County. Women from around the world were cheering for Lorena. They still are. Her name is synonymous for just rewards, etc.

    Actually, the Bobbitts probably helped put Manassas on the map. I believe I have told you that someone asked for my autograph because my checks had ‘Manassas’ on them. I thought that person was incredibly stupid…however, that is the impact it had on the nation. Manassas is still mentioned because of the Bobbitts. Imagine hearing about your home town on Saturday Night Live.

    I mean what do you want to be known for? A sniper, a weenie wacking(off–not the other), a Civil War battle or 2, the famous cocker spaniel joke, or Mr. F’s sign?

  21. Lafayette

    PR, I don’t believe every time the WaPo writes about Manassas they the write “City of Manassas”, and we both know that they do NOT use “Manassas area” like the MNM(and that took them years to get it straight). I think most that live outside of PWC and The City of Manassas don’t even realize that there is a “City of Manassas”. I think they think of Manassas as being in PWC, not it’s own city.

    The knife cuts both ways with problematic areas of our two jurisdictions. As stated before we both have to take the heat for the other one frequently. I’ve ALWAYS said Senor F’s sign was “misplaced anger” was a very unneccessary black-eye to the city. Senor F’s sign was bitching about a PWC policy. We could even go back to when the CoM became it’s own city. Prince William county got the pleasure of the “new city’s” residents on the dole moving to the county, because the city benefits to them were not as much as they could get in the PWC. This was the beginning of the decline of Irongate. Is there anyone that’s been around Manassas long enough to remember this happening? Newcomers need not respond. 🙂

  22. Poor Richard

    Not sure the Chamber of Commerce would call the Bobbitts a slice of
    good luck for Manassas (even though Dr. Sehn still has several
    articles framed on his waiting room wall touting his reattachment
    skills and our local restaurants had a flood of extra business
    from reporters for several weeks).

  23. Lafayette, yes. Over the summer the entire neighborhood abruptly changed. It was easier to move than wait for all the welfare to catch up. Sad, eh?

  24. Lafayette

    @Moon-howler
    Beyond sad, down right PATHETIC!!! I’m glad someone else has been around long enough to remember. I know there’s not too many that have been here as long us, other than Poor Richard and Alanna. I hope you are not the only other to remember this “event” and it’s negative effects on the county.

  25. Poor Richard

    Granted, many people don’t know when they leave PWC
    and enter Manassas City and the whole idea of autonomous
    cities is a Virginia “thing”, but it is important.

    You live in the City your kids go to City schools, the City
    picks up your trash, maintains your street, runs your
    utility system, etc. — and you pay City taxes.

    Live two blocks over in PWC and it is a different game.

    They may look alike in many ways, but they are separate
    jurisdictions.

    Perhaps we could call the area around Manassas, the
    Brentsville District of PWC?

  26. Gainesville Resident

    I’m with PR on the Bobbits. I heard enough bad off-color jokes about Manassas during that time to make me not liking that incident being associated with Manassas. And, Mr. Bobbit for awhile with his antics afterward still got Manassas mentioned in several articles about him (some domestic violence cases he had with other women – I think one was a fiancee or something, and some x-rated or r-rated pornographic thing he did – still got Manassas mentioned in an article about it). Favorable to Manassas? Definitely not! Maybe it was Mr. Bobbit that in the end generated more unfavorable publicity, but whatever, I don’t think it is one of the shining moments in Manassas’ history!

    I even saw an off-color joke at the time on TV on a cable channel by a comedian. I won’t exactly repeat the joke here – but if you remember it was the same time as Disney attempting to come to the area. If you are a bit creative, and can think of one of Disney’s more major icons, and then think about what happened with the Bobbits in terms of anatomy, and maybe you can put 2 and 2 together and recreate the joke. I’m not going to go further than that – some might find the terminology in the joke offensive. This was actually on a cable TV network channel late night by some comedian, and Manassas was mentioned in the joke as being the home to ….. and …..! That should be enough of a hint.

  27. Gainesville Resident

    Of course, oddly enough in terms of Disney’s America project, the press decided that since it was going to be located “near” the Battlefield, it made better headlines to say Disney was going to build a park in Manassas, when in reality it would have been in Haymarket! Another instance of the press not being accurate! Then again, I shudder to think about what traffic would be like out where I live now had that theme park been built, or what Gainesville and Haymarket would look like today! Thank goodness it wasn’t built.

  28. Gainesville Resident

    Poor Richard :
    Perhaps we should call the area around Manassas, the
    Brentsville District of PWC?

    If you ask me – distingushing the two areas by zip code is sufficient. 20110 is the City, 20109 is the area outside the city that people still have “Manassas” as their address. Although, some 20112 zip code addresses use Manassas as the city for the mailing address, oddly enough – yet are almost down near Dale City. The post office and town names used for mailing addresses don’t always make a lot of sense. Of course, I remember before they split the zip codes the entire area of 20110, 20109, 20111 (Manassas Park), and 20112 all were 22110 – one giant big zip code area.

  29. Gainesville Resident

    And as an aside – one of my older relatives could never grasp the change in my zipcode, and kept on sending letters to 22110 for years, until finally one of them went through some really crazy route from New Jersey to someplace way south in Virginia, and then finally got delivered. It had all sorts of crazy postmarks and rerouting stickers on it. I finally convinced that relative that my zip code on letters sent needed to be 20110 – or else it would take more than week for mail to get to me, as it did that time!

  30. Lafayette

    @Poor Richard
    The “Manassas area” is in the Gainesville, Brentsville, and Coles Districts, they all have parts of Manassas in them. Better yet, maybe after the census the county will need an eigth Magesterial District and it could be called the Manassas District. Imagine if the county had a district called Manassas. It could be comprised of all the addresses in the county that have MANASSAS addresses. 🙂

  31. Poor Richard

    Years ago when Lowe’s moved from Manassas to near I-66
    in PWC, the state continued to send their sales taxes to the
    City. It was years before that mistake was discovered.

    (A great game at the old Lowes was to follow their procedure of
    buying lumber inside, driving around back to pick it up and being
    told they didn’t have the item, then driving back around front for
    a refund — all three times waiting in a line. Oh, the good old days!)

  32. Gainesville Resident

    I actually remember the old Lowe’s store. I forget what’s there these days – then again now that I think of it I haven’t passed through that area (Liberia south of Rt. 28) since I moved out of Point of Woods. I never bought lumber there though so fortunately never had that experience!

    Who knows what will happen after the next census. The way they draw up the boundaries for things such as our congressmen, it’s anyone’s guess. When I moved to Gainesville and discovered I had a different congressman, I went and looked at the map of how the congressional districts in this area were drawn. Someone was really creative there – let’s just say that! However, it seems to be that way all over the country.

    Whichever party is in control after the census, they’ll draw the districts in the way that will favor them. I read somewhere that’s where the term “gerrymandering” came about.

    On the more local county level, again the current district layout is a bit strange when I look at it on the map, and who knows what will happen after the next census. I have a feeling even on the local county level, the districts were drawn to somehow attempt to shape the elections a certain way.

  33. Lafayette, you are being a diablo.

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