Flashback Monday: 10 Percent Down! (Appropriate Capitalization Extra)

Set the controls of the Earth-Toned Wayback Machine to the late 1960s, when this “news paper” ad encouraged people to take “any route to Tyson’s Corner” and then a very specific route to Reston to look at townhouses “with such large, spacious rooms that you won’t believe their size until you get inside.”

For $31,300, early would-be Restonians could live in Golf Course Island, surrounded by what was then called Reston’s North Golf Course, and enjoy a “dramatic sunken living room” (naturally). But why would anyone want to put a shocking 10 PERCENT DOWN ($3,130, which works out to 6,875,973 bitcoin in today’s dollars)? The answer is simple — plastics return on investment!

Well, that held true for close to five decades at least.