Close-In vs. Further Suburbs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The inventory in our neighborhood is 1 house about every 5-6 months coming on the market...and the prices have skyrocketed and the house usu. sells in less than 3 days..often under contract the same day it comes on....OR MORE commonly....sold before it is even placed on the market.

How often do you plan to move?
You are buying a home and a place you will live in for some time. If you have a job outside of DC, then the far out suburbs are good options

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The inventory in our neighborhood is 1 house about every 5-6 months coming on the market...and the prices have skyrocketed and the house usu. sells in less than 3 days..often under contract the same day it comes on....OR MORE commonly....sold before it is even placed on the market.

How often do you plan to move?
You are buying a home and a place you will live in for some time. If you have a job outside of DC, then the far out suburbs are good options

But everyone on here says if you live in the suburbs you have to have a 90 minute commute!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How often do you plan to move?
You are buying a home and a place you will live in for some time. If you have a job outside of DC, then the far out suburbs are good options

But everyone on here says if you live in the suburbs you have to have a 90 minute commute!

No
There are lot of jobs outside of DC.
If you are lucky enough to have one of those, you can get a nice house with excellent schools and live a good life

[Anonymous]

I think the close-in suburbs like Bethesda and Arlington (especially North Arlington) have held value really well. Metro proximity (especially walkability to a metro stop) helps a lot too. If you go farther out, really good schools (like Richard Montgomery in Rockville and Woodson and Oakton in Fairfax) help the neighborhood hold value.

I live in an orange-line-metro-accessible neighborhood just outside the beltway and my house has more than doubled in value in the last 10 years, but not gained as much as similar houses in closer-in suburbs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The inventory in our neighborhood is 1 house about every 5-6 months coming on the market...and the prices have skyrocketed and the house usu. sells in less than 3 days..often under contract the same day it comes on....OR MORE commonly....sold before it is even placed on the market.

How often do you plan to move?
You are buying a home and a place you will live in for some time. If you have a job outside of DC, then the far out suburbs are good options

not necessarily true. my parents live in the outer suburbs in this area and their home did not hold its value compared to homes close-in. Friends that live close-in are sitting on million dollar properties they bought for $60k 30 years ago...while my parents paid similar back then and are prob. sitting on something 1/2 that price. Plus---my mother has declared 'the suburbs dead'...esp after snowmegadon..they are esp bummed they aren't in a walkable community...but are now essentially priced out of it.

[Anonymous]

It is a fact of real estate that the better and more close in the neighborhood the more stable the value. Dupont Circle will always be a good place to own. Values have historically always been stable or gone up. At the worst point in the market values were only off 7%. However, you won't see 10-20% annual increases in close in neighborhoods like you will in further out ones. The greater the risk, the greater the potential reward AND loss.

I own over a dozen properties and I would be as close in as you can reasonably afford.