Are there other benefits to living in McLean besides the excellent schools?

[Anonymous]

Location, location, location!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I commute to dc once a week and live in central mclean. It’s still 50 minutes each way leaving at 8am taking GW parkway. 35 with no traffic.

I guess that’s better than what it would be from outside the beltway.

I was wondering why people are claiming a short commute.

People who can afford nice houses in Mclean do not "commute" They don't care what it takes during the rush hour. They go to DC for leisure mostly, or if they go there for business, they have flexibility to travel outside of rush hour, which is 20 min

What on earth are you talking about? It's a DC suburb, it's not St Tropez. Of course people commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in a McLean SFH as a childfree couple.

Why though

Safe, well-behaved families around, short commute to work, tons open space, beautiful well-manicured homes, no risk of home values plummeting, don’t have share a wall with someone or be a stone’s throw from them and lastly, a big house to entertain friends/our parents/nieces/nephews/coworkers/neighbors.

Might as well just have kids if you're going to live like that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I commute to dc once a week and live in central mclean. It’s still 50 minutes each way leaving at 8am taking GW parkway. 35 with no traffic.

I guess that’s better than what it would be from outside the beltway.

I was wondering why people are claiming a short commute.

People who can afford nice houses in Mclean do not "commute" They don't care what it takes during the rush hour. They go to DC for leisure mostly, or if they go there for business, they have flexibility to travel outside of rush hour, which is 20 min

What on earth are you talking about? It's a DC suburb, it's not St Tropez. Of course people commute.

Yes some of these responses are so funny. Most of the $3M-$4M houses in Mclean are newer builds, and most of those buyers are families with school age children, and most of those children go to the public schools, and in most cases, both parents work (maybe from home some of the time). It's not like the independently wealthy, don't need or want to work crowd is going to live in your average Mclean neighborhood. If you look at houses for sale in Mclean right now, most are newer and $2M-$4M, and most of those are going to be purchased by working people with young children.

[Anonymous]

My area also has a lot of older Asian people who bought in McLean to retire and don’t have school age kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Serious reply here OP. We choose McLean for 1) the public schools, 2) the location, 3) more square feet of living space.

Stats: Family of 4. HHI is ~$450K. Our home cost $1.1M 4.5 years ago - and very similar homes on our street are now selling for $1.5M now. I realize the story is the same elsewhere, but from an investment standpoint we are in a highly competitive zip code (22101) for housing/land.

Schools were important because where we lived before the schools were ranked terribly (the GS score for the HS was 2/10!).

Location was key as we work in DC and Crystal City. Where we live in McLean we can get to Tysons/495 very quickly, to the GW pkwy quickly, and other arteries to cut across Arlington or head outside the beltway. And we went from a 2,700 sq ft home to 4,000 sq ft. Slightly under 1/3 acre lot. Great neighborhood, very safe, no traffic passes thru to other places, there are a good number of retirees as PPs noted, but also consultants, a few doctors, CIA folks, and government workers.

The image of McLean that we read about on DCUM is far from what we've experienced. We have friends must make close to $1M and others that just don't - and no one cares. We have great neighbors, the retirees treat our children so kindly, and there aren't a ton of kids, but enough to find/make several friends. Most of Mclean isn't walkable, but most of our week is booked with sports practices and games, and other get togethers with family and friends anyway. McLean definitely needs revitalization downtown, but for now it has everything we need and its super convenient. We can also be in Tyson's in ~7 minutes or FCC or Mosaic in ~10 minutes if we want to shop/dine/walkaround. Clearly McLean isn't for everyone, but we have no regrets. We also considered parts of Vienna but the commute would have been too long for our preference.

This was a great post!