Will Montgomery County ever recover?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depends on what’s in style. Right now NoVa is hot because jobs and development are being pushed to the area. I’m another 5-10 years something else will be hot just like MoCo once was.

Nova has always been the economic engine of the local economy. Not sure why the OP did not recognize this. No crying over spilled milk!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are more people who live in Maryland and work in VA, than those that do the reverse. Based on most recent census data in 2009-2013 time frame, approximately 68,500 people who lived in Virginia work in Maryland. Conversely, approximately 122,700 people who lived in Maryland work in Virginia. You guys can download and look at the raw data yourself:

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dem...commuting/commuting-flows.html

It's very clear that VA does a better job at providing people with, err, jobs, than Maryland.


Agreed, and I suspect in the 10 years since that census was taken, a lot of people have decided to locate or relocate to NoVA, driving up housing prices there compared to MD. It's rational to assume that if one area is creating a lot more jobs than another one, this will have a short-term effect of a lot of people commuting there, and a longer-term effect of people locating there and therefore driving up housing costs relative to other nearby areas.

This X100. I think this is the #1 reason why there is such a stark difference between Montgomery County appreciation and NOVA appreciation. Higher paying jobs are being concentrated in NOVA. This starts a snowball effect with wealthier, high income people moving to NOVA and newcomers choosing NOVA over MoCo. MoCo loses both revenue from not having any jobs or business and losing the high income residents. This makes the area more affordable but less attractive so prices fall further. Poverty increases because there are more options for low income housing and programs. The schools suffer as they lose more highly educated people. Eventually taxes will need to go up spooking away other buyers or tipping the scales for more wealthy people leaving the county. Buyers see the huge differences in appreciation and worry about investing in Montgomery County.

Some of the fundamentals are really stark:



So Fairfax has about 10% more people and 10% more businesses with employees, but the businesses with employees in Fairfax generate 38% more employment and 66% higher payroll than the businesses in Montgomery County. So not only are the businesses in Fairfax County employing far more people on average, but the jobs are significantly higher paying. And year over year Fairfax is enjoying 1.3% employment growth versus 0.2% for MoCo. This does not even take into account the business/employment in Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax City. Here's the underlying raw data for people that want to see for themselves:

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/montgomerycountymaryland,fairfaxcountyvirginia,US/PST045218

Face it, Virginia is providing substantial employment opportunities to Marylanders, MoCo should be thanking their lucky stars for their proximity to NoVA.

NP here. Seriously. To the point, that PP is finding and posting tables on this thread to prove a point. Do you all work? LOL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are more people who live in Maryland and work in VA, than those that do the reverse. Based on most recent census data in 2009-2013 time frame, approximately 68,500 people who lived in Virginia work in Maryland. Conversely, approximately 122,700 people who lived in Maryland work in Virginia. You guys can download and look at the raw data yourself:

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dem...commuting/commuting-flows.html

It's very clear that VA does a better job at providing people with, err, jobs, than Maryland.


Agreed, and I suspect in the 10 years since that census was taken, a lot of people have decided to locate or relocate to NoVA, driving up housing prices there compared to MD. It's rational to assume that if one area is creating a lot more jobs than another one, this will have a short-term effect of a lot of people commuting there, and a longer-term effect of people locating there and therefore driving up housing costs relative to other nearby areas.

This X100. I think this is the #1 reason why there is such a stark difference between Montgomery County appreciation and NOVA appreciation. Higher paying jobs are being concentrated in NOVA. This starts a snowball effect with wealthier, high income people moving to NOVA and newcomers choosing NOVA over MoCo. MoCo loses both revenue from not having any jobs or business and losing the high income residents. This makes the area more affordable but less attractive so prices fall further. Poverty increases because there are more options for low income housing and programs. The schools suffer as they lose more highly educated people. Eventually taxes will need to go up spooking away other buyers or tipping the scales for more wealthy people leaving the county. Buyers see the huge differences in appreciation and worry about investing in Montgomery County.

Some of the fundamentals are really stark:



So Fairfax has about 10% more people and 10% more businesses with employees, but the businesses with employees in Fairfax generate 38% more employment and 66% higher payroll than the businesses in Montgomery County. So not only are the businesses in Fairfax County employing far more people on average, but the jobs are significantly higher paying. And year over year Fairfax is enjoying 1.3% employment growth versus 0.2% for MoCo. This does not even take into account the business/employment in Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax City. Here's the underlying raw data for people that want to see for themselves:

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/montgomerycountymaryland,fairfaxcountyvirginia,US/PST045218

Face it, Virginia is providing substantial employment opportunities to Marylanders, MoCo should be thanking their lucky stars for their proximity to NoVA.

NP here. Seriously. To the point, that PP is finding and posting tables on this thread to prove a point. Do you all work? LOL!

PP here. I am an owner of one of the "employer establishments" in Fairfax County. I do work, but set my own schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Am I the only one who thinks Fairfax County is ugly? That combined with nightmarish traffic, I have struggled to see the draw unless you have a job there. Housing is too expensive, restaurant options seem limited to chains or Korean food. Basically the only pluses are high paying contract jobs and schools staffed by under payed teachers.

You absolutely are not

NoVa is an ugly sprawl criss-crossed by highways

[Anonymous]

MoCo is declining and is not going to recover. Basement dwellers defending its past status certainly won't do the trick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take just one factor - Thomas Jefferson. There are mountains of people who move from MoCo Fairfax just to be able to apply there. They have smart kids and the whole school is serving the best of the best in Fairfax. The dedicated school with all classes and the program tailored to their needs. MoCo could do the same but never will. Why? No idea.

You cannot be that clueless, can you?
The best of Fairfax, in fact the whole NoVa, cannot lit a candle to the best of MoCo.

The PP probably hyperbolized a bit, but your response is complete and utter nonsense. Look in your mirror to find the “clueless.”

No dear, not nonsense but the truth
I know the truth is hard to admit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just looking at the appreciation forecasts for Arlington and Fairfax and feeling very depressed. If you had told me 15 years ago that houses would be selling for over 1M in Falls Church I would have never believed it. Our decision to move to Montgomery County over Falls Church or Arlington has probably cost us 600K-800K in lost opportunity equity. We were really on the fence at the time but thought that there was more room for appreciation in Montgomery County.

Is there any chance that things will flip around or will Montgomery County be stagnant or dropping for another 10 years?

if say NOVA becomes the SV equivalent, then maybe MOCO would be the east bay (Union City, Fremont, Hayward), so a SFH in palo alto would be 3 million, while they are 1 million in fremont and union city as all the poor people get pushed into those areas. It would have still gone up like 2 found over 10-15 years, not bad, but nowhere close to the 4-5x that would have happened in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View or even SF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just looking at the appreciation forecasts for Arlington and Fairfax and feeling very depressed. If you had told me 15 years ago that houses would be selling for over 1M in Falls Church I would have never believed it. Our decision to move to Montgomery County over Falls Church or Arlington has probably cost us 600K-800K in lost opportunity equity. We were really on the fence at the time but thought that there was more room for appreciation in Montgomery County.

Is there any chance that things will flip around or will Montgomery County be stagnant or dropping for another 10 years?

if say NOVA becomes the SV equivalent, then maybe MOCO would be the east bay (Union City, Fremont, Hayward), so a SFH in palo alto would be 3 million, while they are 1 million in fremont and union city as all the poor people get pushed into those areas. It would have still gone up like 2 found over 10-15 years, not bad, but nowhere close to the 4-5x that would have happened in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View or even SF.

I live in NoVa and agree that it will be like palo alto, menlo park and mountain view. Expensive and ugly. But close in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just looking at the appreciation forecasts for Arlington and Fairfax and feeling very depressed. If you had told me 15 years ago that houses would be selling for over 1M in Falls Church I would have never believed it. Our decision to move to Montgomery County over Falls Church or Arlington has probably cost us 600K-800K in lost opportunity equity. We were really on the fence at the time but thought that there was more room for appreciation in Montgomery County.

Is there any chance that things will flip around or will Montgomery County be stagnant or dropping for another 10 years?

if say NOVA becomes the SV equivalent, then maybe MOCO would be the east bay (Union City, Fremont, Hayward), so a SFH in palo alto would be 3 million, while they are 1 million in fremont and union city as all the poor people get pushed into those areas. It would have still gone up like 2 found over 10-15 years, not bad, but nowhere close to the 4-5x that would have happened in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View or even SF.

I live in NoVa and agree that it will be like palo alto, menlo park and mountain view. Expensive and ugly. But close in.

But with terrible weather.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Just looking at the appreciation forecasts for Arlington and Fairfax and feeling very depressed. If you had told me 15 years ago that houses would be selling for over 1M in Falls Church I would have never believed it. Our decision to move to Montgomery County over Falls Church or Arlington has probably cost us 600K-800K in lost opportunity equity. We were really on the fence at the time but thought that there was more room for appreciation in Montgomery County.

Is there any chance that things will flip around or will Montgomery County be stagnant or dropping for another 10 years?


if say NOVA becomes the SV equivalent, then maybe MOCO would be the east bay (Union City, Fremont, Hayward), so a SFH in palo alto would be 3 million, while they are 1 million in fremont and union city as all the poor people get pushed into those areas. It would have still gone up like 2 found over 10-15 years, not bad, but nowhere close to the 4-5x that would have happened in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View or even SF.

There are a lot of tech businesses in Fremont and the rest of east bay is filled with major tech companies too. The Bay Area isn't comparable for many reasons. Tech industry is spread out now. Inventories are very low because there are very few large multi-story apartment or condo buildings. The property taxes freezes when you buy your house so retirees don't sell. The geography of the bay and mountains encloses the area. Drive down 280 which is right under Palo Alto/SV and you see vast open areas of hills and the reservoir that can't be developed.

Businesses will keep expanding into NOVA and there is lots of room. I can't believe the prices you see now in Annandale and Falls Church. There are many more burbs in NOVA that people can expand into and redevelop. I suspect that VA will be aggressive about building more transit and housing development since they have a cash cow on their hands.

What I see already in Montgomery County is that almost everyone works for a non-profit, is a low to mid level Fed in one of the agencies in MD or DC that happen to pay less, work for the county government, schools, or other municipal job or is associated with a small medical practice that doesn't have a high profit margin. These types of jobs have pretty stagnant wage growth. There is a lower ceiling of affordability for even the educated, professional MoCo residents.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure what you mean by "recover", OP. It's not growing as fast as NoVA and probably never will, but it is hardly tanking. We bought near Churchill a few years ago because we have family nearby and one of us works in Rockville. Houses move pretty fast in our neighborhood and have appreciated a bit, we have great neighbors and we are pretty happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Just looking at the appreciation forecasts for Arlington and Fairfax and feeling very depressed. If you had told me 15 years ago that houses would be selling for over 1M in Falls Church I would have never believed it. Our decision to move to Montgomery County over Falls Church or Arlington has probably cost us 600K-800K in lost opportunity equity. We were really on the fence at the time but thought that there was more room for appreciation in Montgomery County.

Is there any chance that things will flip around or will Montgomery County be stagnant or dropping for another 10 years?


if say NOVA becomes the SV equivalent, then maybe MOCO would be the east bay (Union City, Fremont, Hayward), so a SFH in palo alto would be 3 million, while they are 1 million in fremont and union city as all the poor people get pushed into those areas. It would have still gone up like 2 found over 10-15 years, not bad, but nowhere close to the 4-5x that would have happened in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View or even SF.

There are a lot of tech businesses in Fremont and the rest of east bay is filled with major tech companies too. The Bay Area isn't comparable for many reasons. Tech industry is spread out now. Inventories are very low because there are very few large multi-story apartment or condo buildings. The property taxes freezes when you buy your house so retirees don't sell. The geography of the bay and mountains encloses the area. Drive down 280 which is right under Palo Alto/SV and you see vast open areas of hills and the reservoir that can't be developed.

Businesses will keep expanding into NOVA and there is lots of room. I can't believe the prices you see now in Annandale and Falls Church. There are many more burbs in NOVA that people can expand into and redevelop. I suspect that VA will be aggressive about building more transit and housing development since they have a cash cow on their hands.

What I see already in Montgomery County is that almost everyone works for a non-profit, is a low to mid level Fed in one of the agencies in MD or DC that happen to pay less, work for the county government, schools, or other municipal job or is associated with a small medical practice that doesn't have a high profit margin. These types of jobs have pretty stagnant wage growth. There is a lower ceiling of affordability for even the educated, professional MoCo residents.

Not sure what towns in MoCo you're referring to, but the jobs you described don't really cover most of the people residing in Potomac, Bethesda, or even parts of Rockville where people are currently paying 900K-1M for a home...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Just looking at the appreciation forecasts for Arlington and Fairfax and feeling very depressed. If you had told me 15 years ago that houses would be selling for over 1M in Falls Church I would have never believed it. Our decision to move to Montgomery County over Falls Church or Arlington has probably cost us 600K-800K in lost opportunity equity. We were really on the fence at the time but thought that there was more room for appreciation in Montgomery County.

Is there any chance that things will flip around or will Montgomery County be stagnant or dropping for another 10 years?


if say NOVA becomes the SV equivalent, then maybe MOCO would be the east bay (Union City, Fremont, Hayward), so a SFH in palo alto would be 3 million, while they are 1 million in fremont and union city as all the poor people get pushed into those areas. It would have still gone up like 2 found over 10-15 years, not bad, but nowhere close to the 4-5x that would have happened in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View or even SF.

There are a lot of tech businesses in Fremont and the rest of east bay is filled with major tech companies too. The Bay Area isn't comparable for many reasons. Tech industry is spread out now. Inventories are very low because there are very few large multi-story apartment or condo buildings. The property taxes freezes when you buy your house so retirees don't sell. The geography of the bay and mountains encloses the area. Drive down 280 which is right under Palo Alto/SV and you see vast open areas of hills and the reservoir that can't be developed.

Businesses will keep expanding into NOVA and there is lots of room. I can't believe the prices you see now in Annandale and Falls Church. There are many more burbs in NOVA that people can expand into and redevelop. I suspect that VA will be aggressive about building more transit and housing development since they have a cash cow on their hands.

What I see already in Montgomery County is that almost everyone works for a non-profit, is a low to mid level Fed in one of the agencies in MD or DC that happen to pay less, work for the county government, schools, or other municipal job or is associated with a small medical practice that doesn't have a high profit margin. These types of jobs have pretty stagnant wage growth. There is a lower ceiling of affordability for even the educated, professional MoCo residents.

Because you know everyone who lives in MoCo. My next good neighbor is a VP at Astra Zeneca, across the street is a doctor. I' m in IT sales, and my husband is in commercial real estate. What a moronic statement but keep on thinking what you wanna believe, bro.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Just looking at the appreciation forecasts for Arlington and Fairfax and feeling very depressed. If you had told me 15 years ago that houses would be selling for over 1M in Falls Church I would have never believed it. Our decision to move to Montgomery County over Falls Church or Arlington has probably cost us 600K-800K in lost opportunity equity. We were really on the fence at the time but thought that there was more room for appreciation in Montgomery County.

Is there any chance that things will flip around or will Montgomery County be stagnant or dropping for another 10 years?


if say NOVA becomes the SV equivalent, then maybe MOCO would be the east bay (Union City, Fremont, Hayward), so a SFH in palo alto would be 3 million, while they are 1 million in fremont and union city as all the poor people get pushed into those areas. It would have still gone up like 2 found over 10-15 years, not bad, but nowhere close to the 4-5x that would have happened in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View or even SF.

There are a lot of tech businesses in Fremont and the rest of east bay is filled with major tech companies too. The Bay Area isn't comparable for many reasons. Tech industry is spread out now. Inventories are very low because there are very few large multi-story apartment or condo buildings. The property taxes freezes when you buy your house so retirees don't sell. The geography of the bay and mountains encloses the area. Drive down 280 which is right under Palo Alto/SV and you see vast open areas of hills and the reservoir that can't be developed.

Businesses will keep expanding into NOVA and there is lots of room. I can't believe the prices you see now in Annandale and Falls Church. There are many more burbs in NOVA that people can expand into and redevelop. I suspect that VA will be aggressive about building more transit and housing development since they have a cash cow on their hands.

What I see already in Montgomery County is that almost everyone works for a non-profit, is a low to mid level Fed in one of the agencies in MD or DC that happen to pay less, work for the county government, schools, or other municipal job or is associated with a small medical practice that doesn't have a high profit margin. These types of jobs have pretty stagnant wage growth. There is a lower ceiling of affordability for even the educated, professional MoCo residents.

Because you know everyone who lives in MoCo. My next good neighbor is a VP at Astra Zeneca, across the street is a doctor. I' m in IT sales, and my husband is in commercial real estate. What a moronic statement but keep on thinking what you wanna believe, bro.

PP again... And gasp! We live in North Potomac.. aka "Gaithersburg".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take just one factor - Thomas Jefferson. There are mountains of people who move from MoCo Fairfax just to be able to apply there. They have smart kids and the whole school is serving the best of the best in Fairfax. The dedicated school with all classes and the program tailored to their needs. MoCo could do the same but never will. Why? No idea.

You cannot be that clueless, can you?
The best of Fairfax, in fact the whole NoVa, cannot lit a candle to the best of MoCo.

The PP probably hyperbolized a bit, but your response is complete and utter nonsense. Look in your mirror to find the “clueless.”

No dear, not nonsense but the truth
I know the truth is hard to admit

This is hilarious but sad. The poster above had it right.

I pity your ignorance and seemingly teeny-tiny understanding of truth.