He's Obsessed With Condo Prices -- But Can He Ever Buy One?

James Cave, a Virginia renter, wants to buy a condo near his office, but feels prices are too high. He stands near another condo under construction in the neighborhood, Residences at Station Square in Clarendon. (Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)

James Cave, 34, navigates smoothly through the congested streets of Arlington on a recent workday afternoon. He's wearing a baseball cap and driving a new black SUV. He's the very picture of urban cool, but he is simmering hot with rage. Shaking his head and waving his arms in frustration, he points out what he sees as the rising signs of insanity all around him.

He gestures to one newly built condominium tower where he had considered buying. "$350,000 to $1 million," he snorts. "Next to a gas station and a fast-food restaurant. Smell it! Smell it! You can smell the fast food cooking!"

Cave points to another rising edifice. "You can see the signs -- luxury condos for $800,000. What could be so luxurious in a condo?"

He nods toward another pricey building, mockingly noting that it overlooks a bus parking lot. "That's no view," he says.

The real estate market has become an obsession for a lot of people in this region, and Cave is one of them.

With 11 years of work experience as a graphic designer, secure in his job, climbing in his field, Cave is the kind of young man who normally would have already moved into the ranks of smug homeownership. He has spent the past eight years saving for a down payment. He is ready for the nesting phase of life, would like to buy and has identified the neighborhood he wants, but now it all just seems too uncertain, too expensive. And so he waits.

Instead, he spends at least part of every day thinking about real estate -- what's for sale, how much it costs, where it is located, what it looks like. He wonders how people can afford it, whether home prices can continue to rise and what would happen if they were to fall. He worries most about what would happen to him if values were to fall after he finally bought, possibly draining years of his savings.

A University of Maryland graduate who grew up in Prince George's County, Cave recalls a time when he was about 20, during the real estate slump of the early 1990s, when houses in his family's Bowie neighborhood sat unsold for months, finally changing hands for much less than the owners had hoped.

Cave and other would-be first-time buyers are part of the reason the Washington area market has slowed down. Instead of leaping into the market as others did in the past few years, more prospective purchasers are taking their time, agonizing over the decision and, in some cases, deciding to take a wait-and-see approach before committing.

"There are probably the same number of buyers as before, but they are not in any rush to buy," said Rick Bosl, a real estate agent who specializes in the Arlington condo market and works with Keller Williams Realty. And there are just so many more homes for sale, he said.

The multiple listing service lists 462 condos available for sale in Arlington, he said. There are several hundred more units available in new buildings and new condo conversions that aren't listed on that service.

"In some markets, we've seen prices go down, and nobody wants to buy in a falling market," he said. "On the other hand, there can be more opportunities, because if your house has been available for sale on the market for a while, you might be willing to sell for anything that comes along." He added that many condos have appreciated so much that the owners could decide to accept a $150,000 profit rather than $200,000, if they wanted to sell quickly.