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Is it possible to buy a decent house for $500K or lower in a safe neighborhood with good schools?
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Anonymous
| Sure, in Ohio or elsewhere in the midwest. |
Anonymous
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Absolutely. Close in Silver Spring and Takoma Park. Takoma Park and large areas of SS feed into great elementary/middle schools and then to Blair for high school. There are two great houses on my street for sale right now under $500,000. Both are in great shape - definitely not fixer uppers and are minutes to the Red Line for an easy commute into downtown:
http://www.redfin.com/MD/Silver-Spring/502-Mississippi-Ave-20910/home/10954579 http://www.redfin.com/MD/Silver-Spring/420-Mississippi-Ave-20910/home/10970819 |
Anonymous
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We bought a house in Silver Spring (northern part) for less than $500k, and the neighborhood is very safe and the elementary school it feeds into is supposedly very good. I'm not sure about the middle or high schools. We are also from a part of the country where housing is relatively cheap, but our house here is actually bigger than our house back home. I definitely think you can find what you're looking for, you just might need to compromise on a few things. Our house was in need of some maintenance, but no major work. The hardest part was finding a house we could afford that wasn't a Colonial style, we just weren't used to that.
Good luck, and I don't know why some people on this web site are so negative about everything. |
Anonymous
| In Arlington, look at Arlington Heights, Alcova Heights, North Barcroft and South Arlington Forest in 22204. They are packed with young families who are making sure the schools are getting improved. |
Anonymous
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Silver Spring -- cute, close in, super-friendly area and the elementary schools are fine to excellent.
Middle schools can be an issue but I know lots of people who love their middle schools (SSIMS and Takoma Middle) and whose kids are thriving. Plus, if you have little kids that gives you a number of years in your "starter home" if you want to move to middle school. |
Anonymous
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Hi 10:54, looks like a great neighborhood! Are these walkable to the metro? Also, what is the elementary school they feed into?
We're about ready to call it quits on DC and Silver Spring is really appealing to me! |
Anonymous
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The houses that are in this range in Silver Spring are small. So, yes, it can be done, but it depends on how much space you want/need (for example, one of the listings linked is a 1.5 story with dormers).
Otherwise, you can really only get that with a horrible commute. We bought in University Park (1/2 mile from a metro, great for commuting downtown) before deciding to have children, and are now facing bad schools post-elementary. We are trying to do the calculation about whether we save anything by selling our house at a major loss and trying to buy in Montgomery County versus just staying here and paying for private school (about the same cost as the loss we'd take over the longer term). It's all moot until we could come up with some kind of down payment, but even with a down payment our budget would be the same as yours and it's not clear that we'd be able to find something big enough (and we're not space hogs, but we are 6 feet tall plus people, so a Cape Cod style second-story feels pretty cramped to us). |
Anonymous
| PP here: Silver Spring and Takoma Park were our first choices when we were looking 4 years ago, so I don't mean to come off as negative about those neighborhoods. Quite the opposite! I just am not seeing houses that are significantly larger than what was available when we were looking at the peak (although they definitely are in better shape -- back then you could really only get a tiny fixer-upper over a mile from the metro for under 500k). |
Anonymous
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Hi - I'm 10:54 - come be our neighbors! We love our neighborhood - we are officially Takoma Park though our mailing address is Silver Spring. Takoma Park has a great rec dept and library with tons of activities for little ones and lots of different community events through the summer and fall: Jazz Festival, Folk Festival, Street Festival, Farmer's Market, etc. We are also super close to DT Silver Spring which also has a lot of community events, retaurants, Whole Foods, etc, etc.
The houses I listed on Mississippi are walkable to the TP Metro stop - about 15 minutes walk but they are both literally steps to a Ride-On bus to the metro - less than 5 minutes. My commute to Downtown DC is about 30 minutes consistently. To the other posters - yes, some people feel that the houses are small. We're fine in our 3 bedroom, 2 bath Colonial with finished basement - we have a fairly large yard and are very close to several great playgrounds. We bought last year and knew that we wouldn't get a huge house in good shape, in our price range, in a great community with good schools and close in to DC so we sacrificed house size and are comfortable with our decision. It helps us to live more simply and not buy tons of junk we don't need. Ask me how I feel in 12 years when I have two teenage boys - maybe I'll feel differently 
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Anonymous
| Welcome to my world. We're trying to find a home for under $400,000 with good public schools. We're looking in Silver Spring, Crofton, and Springfield/Burke. We're finding some options, but yes, they are small (fine with me) and need updating (also fine with me). If you really want a commute I have friends that live in Stafford, VA. You can get slugs for the commute and they say it takes an hour usually. You can get a BIG house there for very cheap. |
Anonymous
You should look in Old Greenbelt. People often write it off because it's in PG county but it's a great place to live. |
Anonymous
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My friends in SS/TP love it.
If you are interested in VA, look at Annandale/Fairfax, off Braddock Rd, in the Woodson HS cluster. Safe neighborhood, excellent schools. We bought a 4 bedroom/3bath house here for 475k last year. The commute is long- (45-50min door to door), that is the trade-off. But I take the VRE so at least I don't sit in traffic (though the train delays, when it is really hot or stormy, are annoying.) |
Anonymous
| Olney/Brookeville (zips 20832/20833). You can find a nice 4/5 bdrm home with a huge yard in a great school district (Belmont, Greenwood, etc.). Lots of folks head out here after having a starter home in Silver Spring --- you get more bang for your buck out here. And FWIW, the commute downtown is tolerable (I do it every day). |
Anonymous
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Another resident of Silver Spring (near downtown - not sure about far out SS) who loves it.
We have a three bedroom, 2 bathroom house with finished basement. I guess some would call that small. Most people in my neighborhood are solving for that by adding on. So lots of four bedrooms now. Our neighbor just did an awesome two story addition - added a bedroom and quite a bit to their kitchen that now opens into a living room - really nice space. We are opening up the kitchen currently (knocking down a wall so we can have a large eat in kitchen) and would love to add on down the road if finances permit. The issue I have that we can now afford more - as in when we bought we had $500,000 to spend, and now we can spend closer to $650, but the problem is that I don't really like any areas more than ours except maybe houses close in selling for more like in the $1 million range. Since we are likely not to get to that point, we may just add on (within reason) and stay in the area we love. |
Anonymous
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OP here, thanks everyone for your recs! I do love the houses that 10:54 posted. I am not familiar with Takoma Park but will definitely look into it. It is important that it has a nice rec center and library for my little one. And my DH commutes to Gaithersburg so unfortunately much of Virginia would be a trickier commute. Although I do like the idea of Vienna. Again, it is super helpful all of you who have recommended a neighborhood. I haven't officially gotten over my "sticker shock" of houses in this area.
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