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The Beach is back: Town enjoys
housing boom
The Beach is back. Real-estate boom washes
ashore in Potomac River town.
By FRANK DELANO
The Free Lance-Star
A $6.95 "For Sale By Owner" sign may have been the
second-best investment John Piazza ever made. His best may
have been his little house in Colonial Beach.
An hour after Piazza put the sign up in the yard of his
home at 604 Monroe Bay Ave., a golf cart stopped. A Stafford
County couple got out, looked the place over and asked "How
much?"
Two hours later, Piazza had in his hand a deposit on a
$208,000 deal for the 1,100-square-foot concrete-block house
with a pier.
He paid $119,000 for the place in 1993.
"It's unbelievable," Piazza said of the booming real-estate
market in the old resort town on the Potomac River.
Real estate is selling fast and for top dollar. Building
permits for new houses and renovations are way up. And
developers are poised to rebuild the town's down-at-the-heels
boardwalk area and to create a new golf-course community at
the edge of town.
Latana Locke and Bob Swink couldn't be happier. Both are
real-estate agents in Colonial Beach enjoying record sales
this year.
"Last year was very good, but we've closed more properties
already this year than last year. This year will be our best
year in 16 years of business," Locke said.
For Swink, "the best year we've had in 10 years" has one
downside.
"We need listings so bad," he said. "We only have four or
five active listings still available. We had two new listings
this week and both sold before the week was out."
Mayor George W. "Pete" Bone Jr. said the real-estate boom
is the result of the town being "discovered" by affluent
residents of Washington-area suburbs seeking vacation and
retirement homes.
Michael J. Wardman is one of them. The scion of a family
long prominent in Washington-area construction, Wardman bought
a weekend house in Colonial Beach and "fell in love with the
view of the river and with the town."
The Wardman Cos. recently bought two adjacent commercial
properties in Colonial Beach's rundown downtown: the former
Hop's Place at the corner of Hawthorne and the Boardwalk and
the former Olga's Art & Framing at 10 Hawthorne St.
Wardman said his company is developing "exciting plans" for
the properties "that will work with the town's goals for
redevelopment," but he declined to elaborate.
"We think it's a neat little town with huge potential for
revitalization," he said. "We're trying to get momentum and
buzz up here in Northern Virginia about Colonial Beach."
Two other companies are negotiating with the town about
developing three acres of town-owned property on the boardwalk
with a mix of residential, commercial and recreational uses.
In addition, Maryland developer Benjamin B. Bell Jr. has
submitted to the town and Westmoreland County preliminary
plans for a 913-home golf-course community on the edge of
Colonial Beach.
According to the 2000 Census, the town had 2,026
houses--nearly half built before 1960. The average house in
Colonial Beach had five rooms. The median value was
$87,600.
New buyers seem willing to pay top prices. Courthouse
records for September show that 18 Colonial Beach properties
sold for 145 percent of their 2001 appraisals.
Even so, real-estate agent Locke said the town "is still
very affordable." Buyers are taking advantage of low mortgage
rates to snatch up houses, she said.
Locke said buyers of homes in Colonial Beach like walking
and biking along the town's quiet, tree-lined streets and
river beaches. They also like its golf carts.
This year, Virginia allowed Colonial Beach to become the
only mainland town in the state where golf carts are allowed
on public streets. The town has issued 40 golf-cart licenses
since July.
Prospective home purchasers, Locke said, "are getting a big
kick of seeing two or three golf carts parked outside of
restaurants."
She said low mortgage rates also have resulted in a flurry
of new-home construction and renovation of older homes.
Colonial Beach issued three building permits for new homes
in 2000 and four new-home permits in 2001. So far this year,
the town has issued 28 permits for new homes.
In addition, 45 building permits were issued in September
for renovations, compared with just five last September.
"You can't drive down a street in Colonial Beach and not
see a house being fixed up," Locke said.
Date published: Sun,
10/20/2002
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