The Village At Hilliard Green

Hi...I am not a resident at Village at Hilliard Green but i live in the general neighborhood and am preparing to purchase a home.  I have driven the area several times and just have a couple questions if anyone cares to help me out :-)

I have 2 sons (ages 8-11) ...are there many children in the neighborhood?  I've seen the park, but always seen to drive through during school hours?

Does the traffic pattern seem to work well...especially with children?  The apartment complex I currently live in is nice, but the drivers go way too fast and there have been several near misses in my opinion since the children all seem to ride their bikes in the parking lots.

Any other general information or hints & tips would be extremely helpful. 

Thanks!!

There are many (unruly) children in the neighborhood.  They pee down the slides at the playground.  Break into garages and cars.  Scream and yell and run wild all hours of the night.

The traffic pattern is rediculous.  A certain board member has sectioned off a corner of the neighborhood and made the road one way.  It basically forces everyone to the other entrance where you either end up with 3 cars coming from different directions butting into one another or people speeding back to the other end of the neighborhood.

My advice to you would be to look around at some of the other subdivisions similar to this one.  There are plenty of them and most of them are cheaper.  The association fees are outrageous for the level of service we get and there is a lot of resentment for new people who paid less or are renting from the board of directors. 

Long story short:  This place is a disaster.  Spend you money elsewhere.

This is not a bad place to live, its very quiet around here.  There are some kids in the neighborhood, and there are a few unruly ones but I don't think thats gonna be much different in any other neighborhood.  I will be honest with you though, I don't think its the best neighborhood for children as the yards are small and the houses close together.  Not much for kids to do around here, which could explain why we have a few bad apples.

For the most part, most residents drive slowly thru the community. Most of the cars I see speeding thru or driving recklessly are not residents here.

My wife and I are original owners here, we've been here since 2003 and enjoy it here.

I am just curious as to what happened to the values in this neighborhood.  Dominion sold these back in 2002-2003 in the 140s - 150s range and then now the recent sales by HUD or bank short sales have been in the $105,000 - $115,000 range.  Why?  

Did something happen in this neighborhood?  How's the neighborhood for 1st time homebuyers looking to live there for 3- 5 yrs?