Luxury Homes Sprout in Established Communities

This is part two of a three-part series on the housing market and real estate in Annandale and how it has evolved over the years.

About 15 years ago, a new type of house arrived in Annandale. Feted by some, disparaged by others, these homes have quickly moved into established communities—the owners often tear down an existing, smaller home to build a much, much larger house.

Welcome to the McMansion. Or, if you’d rather, “luxury home.”

Some luxury homes in Annandale and the surrounding area are valued at more than $1 million, according to Fairfax County tax records. It’s not uncommon for them to boast 14,000 square feet of living space.

Some say the immigrant community has influenced the design of luxury homes, many of which include high fences or perimeter walls, light-colored building materials or ornate decoration, resembling walled compounds found in other countries. Others say the high walls have more to do with an aversion to seeing the neighbors.

Mason District Supervisor Penny Gross witnessed the change first-hand.

“It was sort of the vanguard of the redevelopment that’s been going on around the county,” she said. “Who knew you’d have $750,000 homes in Annandale?”

Many area residents with higher incomes wanted to move into Annandale but weren’t satisfied with the existing housing options, Gross said, so they built larger homes amid smaller properties.

It’s not uncommon to see luxury homes in Annandale next door to more modest houses.  Kurt Duty, a realtor the Duty Group of Keller Williams Realty in Alexandria, sells properties in Annandale and says, for the most part, McMansions are not welcome neighbors.

“It’s never really appreciated from the start,” Duty said. “It’s not looked favorably upon.”

Luxury homes are rarely, if ever, found in neighborhoods with active homeowners associations, where community rules would prohibit their construction, he said.

“The problem with the McMansions is it ruins the continuity of a neighborhood,” Duty said. “When you drive through the neighborhood, no matter the size of a neighborhood, even if they’re one-level homes, you can appreciate the nature of the continuity of the neighborhood. When you put a McMansion in a neighborhood, it really ruins the continuity.”

The presence of a luxury home next door can negatively affect the resale value of a more modest home, Duty said, because of the striking difference it generates. However, Tim Shirocky, assistant director of the county’s real estate division, said the existence of a luxury home in a middle-class community does not drive property values up or down in assessments.

“The McMansions and the larger homes are valued independently from the older, existing properties in the neighborhood,” he said. “There’s a misconception that the McMansions are driving their assessment values up in their older, established neighborhoods, and that’s just not so, because they’re valued separately from other properties.”

Instead, homes are assessed primarily by the characteristics of the property – including the size, number of rooms, the existence of a finished basement or a fireplace – the home’s amenities and the value of comparable houses in the neighborhood, Shirocky said.

Gross, on her end, welcomes luxury homes in Annandale.

“I see it as a reinvestment in the community,” she said.

For more on Annandale real estate and development, read the third part of this three-part series: .