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Living in close in Bethesda or DC
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Anonymous
Ok, but what is your net savings when you factor in property taxes? |
Anonymous
| If you are sending your kids to privates, I'd go with DC. Wouldn't even consider MD. If you are looking in AU park, it's a great neighborhood. Depending on where you'll be living, you'll be able to walk to stores/coffee shops and have a nice sense of community. And Turtle Park is great for kids. Plus the new pool at Wilson is supposed to be nice. Personally, I haven't even found the DMV in DC to be that bad. |
Anonymous
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Close in Bethesda- walk to everything, metro, stores, grocery stores, the trolley, the trail,
DC- |
Anonymous
| Agree about property taxes. Some people on these boards may live in homes where property taxes are fairly low--esp if they bought before the bubble. We considered buying in MD and ended up with DC bc of this issue. Our kids are going to private, as well. |
Anonymous
| Find the neighborhood + house that suits you. |
Anonymous
| The income tax differential is 3% int he highest brackets, so it is really the income tax that makes a difference. Assume you make $500,000 (i am using this assuming both parents work and afford private school tuition). savings is $15,000. Chances are this is greater than the property tax differential. |
Anonymous
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Do you know which schools your children will attend? If they're in DC and you and/or your spouse will work in DC, the shorter commute should be a big consideration. Re: parking, unless you're very close to a major artery like Connecticut Avenue where there are apartment buildings, there will be plenty of parking. Right now in front of our house in Cleveland Park there is one car on the street for the entire block of 10 houses. At night, there might be three or four. We entertain a lot of and friends and family never have a problem parking on our street. I think close-in Bethesda is much worse from this standpoint -- further out may not be a problem.
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Anonymous
| Do you care about your ability to have representation in Congress? |
Anonymous
I live in that area of DC (Spring Valley/Kent) and its perfectly located. Several of the public elementaries are good (Key, Horace Mann, and Janney -although the last facility needs upgrading) and lots of people use them for PK/K-3rd or 5th. Perfectly decent option. After that though I do think more people switch. We choose private for our kids from the beginning but honestly did consider the public elemenatay. The neighborhoods in upper NW are very convenient to life in general. Its actually not all that different from suburbia when it comes to housing, parking ,etc... just more character and leafier. We also have neighbors from lots of different ethnic/cultural backgrounds. My NYC-dwelling best friend laughs when I say i "live i the city."  I love NWDC and have lived in some other areas of the washington metro area. Honestly, I would never choose Bethesda over NWDC.
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Anonymous
| Honestly, I have lived in both NW DC and Bethesda. There really isn't much noticeable difference. If you are within walking distance of downtown bethesda there is a lot more you can walk to than in NW DC - the latter actually feels more suburban than some parts of bethesda. I certainly wouldn't say most of NW DC has more character! |
Anonymous
"honestly"??? does this mean you lie in your other posts? |
Anonymous
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We moved from Bethesda to DC several years ago (to shorten commutes and be in a particular neighborhood where we don't have to drive as much for errands, etc.)
But there are houses in Bethesda close to stores, etc. too, so I would pick the house you like best. For us the shorter commute is fabulous and worth the tax differential. As the prior comments illustrate, it is difficult to generalize. |
Anonymous
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Aside from the quality of the public schools there's not a huge difference between upper NW DC and Chevy Chase (MD) or very close-in Bethesda (e.g., Edgemoor, Westbrook ES neighborhood). We live in Chevy Chase, but our kids go to school in DC (after having gone to public for elementary scbool). We're about a 10-minute walk from the Friendship Heights Metro, about the same distance as many of our friends who live across Western in the District. We can also walk to "downtown" Bethesda as well as Chevy Chase DC. Whichever side of the line we're on, we run into friends from both DC and Maryland -- there's no Iron Curtain.
So, on the whole, I'd advise you, as several PPs have, to go with the house and neighborhood you love , BUT -- I would caution you about ruling out public school forever, especially if your kids are young. We were firmly in the public school camp when our kids were little, but switched to private at middle school. We have friends who've gone the other way for various reasons, so you never know. |
Anonymous
correct. |
Anonymous
| I have lived near AU and in Bethesda. They are pretty much equal. The big question is what you plan to do on weekends. Some people like to go deeper into the city for museums, concerts, etc. Others like to go further out -- to the state parks and cheaper stores and big open spaces that you find more easily in MD and VA. We fell in to the second category once we had kids so Bethesda was a better fit for us. |