If you haven’t heard of the Bubble Blog, it’s the antithesis of the Charlottesville Real Estate Media machine.  The people who run it are anonymous from what I can tell.  As fellow Villains, we were immediately attracted to their mission “for bemusement purposes only, it’s a small contribution to the zeitgeist.” We discovered many things which are well worth the read.  Between real estate agent denial, BULLMONT, it NOT being a great time to buy for 99.9999% of the population, I am very excited to share this amazing interview with you.

We put on the masks and met in a secret lair. I cannot tell you details about the Bubble people behind the mask, but I can share with you the responses which may outsnark some of our very own Villains.  The questions are below:

1. When the Charlottesville housing bubble bursts, will we be wet, slimy or greasy?
2. Why do realtors lie about housing in Charlottesville being HOT right now? In my neighborhood, prices have come down over 15%. How is that hot?
3.  When our homes fall into the giant hole in the economy, what are your survival tips? How many guns do you own?
4.  Are you smarter than Jim Duncan? Are you Jim Duncan’s Nemesis
5. What’s the most ridiculously priced house and/or neighborhood in Charlottesville right now? What’s the best deal?
6. Anything else you want to say to our readers?

Get ready for the responses, this one is a doozy.
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Popularity: 48% [?]

Witty graffiti always has a strong place in Scowly’s heart.

Seen outside Main Street Market for the old Milano place.  Kabbashtastic.

Popularity: 38% [?]

I was thinking about a poll that was once conducted on this site about how many cVillain readers actually live downtown (which I cannot find in the archives for the life of me). The results showed that most of this site’s readers don’t actually live downtown, which is the scene that this blog revolves around. Now I will tell you that when I moved to Charlottesville, I knew nothing about this city and not a soul that lived inside it. I looked at a lot of different apartments in a lot of different locations, but as soon as I saw the downtown area, I fell in love.

What’s not to love about living downtown? The mall is social epicenter of this wonderful city, and it exudes a unique and dignified air with its countless number of fantastic food and drink options. Not only that, but I could get as drunk as I wanted and never had to call a cab (which is apparently iffy in this town). I felt like I was part of some hip and trendy crowd that always knew what the new black was. Whenever I had friends over, they all agreed how cool it was to be living in downtown Charlottesville.

After spending almost a year living downtown, however, I have noticed a few drawbacks to my seemingly perfect existence:

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I know all of you must be going into post-lunch food coma mode, but here is just one more morsel to chew on before you stop pretending to actually be working…It seems an article the C-Ville wrote about a local neighborhood pissed off some residents. One of them sent a letter to the editor, and for some strange reason I think the only place anyone will read it is on cVillain, so, without further ado:

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Maybe Charlottesville Real Estate is Hurting more than we think.  Jim has a great post on the statistics of our housing market.

News? We have over a full year of inventory of houses on the market.  Bring out your cash books in a few months if you have any money right now.  This looks pretty nasty.

[Read the full story at RealCentralVA.com]

Popularity: 12% [?]

Jim sends us a link that explains CVS is coming to the corner.  We failed to highlight this rumor which actually hit our site on Feb 26.  DaveO explains:

The owner of the building is Terry from College Inn who owns much of 2 blocks on the corner including the Plan 9 & Higher Grounds coffee space, Just Curry, and the Satellite Ballroom. All of these businesses will be affected and will close, probably this summer, to be replaced by….. CVS Pharmacy. This is not a rumor, this is a fact. It’s probably too late to voice any objection because the CVS lease has in all likelihood already been signed.

I should make stuff like this its own post!

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Despite the national housing crisis, Charlottesville has a slightly lower foreclosure rate than the national average.

The Daily Progress reports:

Less than 1/2 of 1 percent of Charlottesville area homeowners were either in foreclosure or more than 60 days behind payments on a subprime loan, according to October statistics compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond….“It’s fair to say that the Charlottesville area does not have a subprime mortgage crisis, at least not at this point,” said Phil d’Oronzio, principal of Pilot Mortgage.

Jim Duncan asks:

I’d love to see the sources of all of these conclusions. For example - how is the “Charlottesville region” defined - which localities are included?

Well, Jim my Nordic powers lead me to no data source, either. I did find this a table on page 34 of the regional 2007 third quarter snapshot that explains Virginia has slightly lower (4.41%) mortgage delinquencies when compared to a national average (5.81%).  Additionally, Virginia subprime mortgage delinquencies (15.77%) are slightly lower than the national average (16.68%).  I do wonder where the Daily Progress sourced their information, because I couldn’t find it.

Does anyone know?

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Photo courtesy of John Blackburn

Charlottesville travels.

It is not just the profusion of ski racks indefinitely fixed to Subarus on our roads that suggests that a day trip is never far off. Charlottesville, the Charlottesville I know, is a city that craves and celebrates culture– and isn’t bothered by getting in the car to find it.

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Things to Talk About:

From New York Times and Paulson to Charlottesville Real Estate, it’s a good idea to educate yourself about mortgage woes and housing issues. We’ve heard a lot of whispers about real estate starting to harm residents, even in the gem of Charlottesville.

Um, local politics!? I’m not sure anyone really cares about the rat race, but if you do, The Hook has a great writeup on all the candidates.

Charlottesville School Decree: Bullying is officially over… riiiiiiiiiiiight.

Rumored restaurant closings: Big Jim’s & Atomic Burrito. Fans have created a “Save Atomic” group on Face Book.

Virginia Film Festival. Do you love Turturro?

Things to Do:

Hook described “Floyd style” Crozet Music Festival. It’s gonna be a nice day and this thing is being marketed incessantly. Will you go for $25? The band lineup excites some and bores others. Us… we’d rather grab a bottle of Pinot and go hiking.

How long shall it take somebody before they decide to go to the Mute Math show at Satellite on Saturday night? If you aren’t into Mute Math, you can watch Wilco at the Pav for 38 bucks. Is it worth that much money to see a Jam Band (…kidding)?

Suck nitrous balloons on the downtown mall?

You can shoot guns at each other… paintball guns, with CSSC.

There are some other concerts too… check our calendar to see more stuff! You can always submit events…Nothing special on the bar scene this weekend.

Finally, a shameless advertising plug. We are working on a site redesign and in order to pay for it we need more advertsiers. So, tell your friends and send us a note if you want to advertise!

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The natural bridge is a privately owned natural landmark that you have to pay $12 dollars to see. Word on the street is that they do some pretty lame light shows late at night. I’ve never heard of anyone actually enjoying the bridge. The worst thing is that they have put a fence around the bridge, so you can’t see it unless you pay! »Read More

Popularity: 2% [?]