Housing options--work in Ashburn, live as far away as possible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:. About 10 years ago I lived in Tenleytown and worked for a dot com in Ashburn, and got to work in 45 minutes by taking Mass Ave to some back roads near Glen Echo to 495, exiting off at Georgetown Pike and taking back roads to the Toll Rd after the main toll plaza. That said, I realize that traffic patterns have changed in the past 10 years, and we can't get anything in Tenley in our price range.

Yes, that commute has gotten slower since 10 years ago. Not so much the Mass/back streets/Clara Barton part, but the beltway to Toll Road portion.

[Anonymous]

PP- you don't want that house. I went and looked at it with my husband and it is in bad shape. Plus, the owners must have lived there with a 1000 cats. It's small, and strange, outdated and in poor condition. There's no backyard. Hope this makes you feel better!!!

[Anonymous]

Falls Church person here. You can afford an older townhome or a small, fixer rambler in FC. I think FC is a great compromise between city and suburbs. It's very walkable and family friendly and also has great schools (both in the city of FC and in some surrounding areas, but you have to do a little research to find houses in those areas).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP- you don't want that house. I went and looked at it with my husband and it is in bad shape. Plus, the owners must have lived there with a 1000 cats. It's small, and strange, outdated and in poor condition. There's no backyard. Hope this makes you feel better!!!

Pretty much anyting in desirable Reston neighborhoods are total shit 550K and under. They need lots of work.

Reston is my ideal DC Metro community, but we cannot afford it because we have NO time, money, or stomach for a major remodel. THis is why we bought a beautiful home in Ashburn in a great school zone from Elementary on through High. Yes, our house is cookie cutter and we live in the land of strip malls, but we have great neighbors and a very comfortable spacious home that our family can easily grow in. We live on a cul-de-sac and our kids always have friends outside to play with, which is wonderful. If we want a good meal, as infrequently we dine out, we head into Leesburg. We used to live in Arlington, which is where I grew up, attending Yorktown and never used the "superior" urban ammenities anyways. Life right now is dictated by our boys sports schedules and I simply cannot fathom finding the time to enjoy these ammenities, that is what school field trips are for the the occasional summer trip with the hoards of other tourists down to the mall.

For us, Ashburn is great, we both work along the toll road and our commutes are no more than 20min. For us, we would NEVER take a long commute, sitting in traffic to get to and from work is a non-starter. We have been able to move jobs and still remain within the Dulles Corridor, so job mobility out here has not been a problem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP- you don't want that house. I went and looked at it with my husband and it is in bad shape. Plus, the owners must have lived there with a 1000 cats. It's small, and strange, outdated and in poor condition. There's no backyard. Hope this makes you feel better!!!

This does make me feel better. There is always a reason something sits on the market, especially if it is that price in reston. If we're buying a single family, we want a yard. We saw a super cute, spacious (to us) single family in South Reston for $400K, but it was not a "desirable" neighborhood and had zero yard. Darn shame - we might have looked past the undesirable neighborhood part if it had a yard.

There is a cute little neighborhood called Stuart Ridge which is not far from us off of Lake Newport just on the other side of 7100 (Herndon). We saw a couple houses there, but nothing that we really could see ourselves living in for an extended period.

I'm the 7100 poster - we found something we adore in Greenbriar in great shape, but no one will accept a home sale contingency unless you are already actively on the market. I refuse to be homeless. We are working to get our TH staged/decluttered. We shall see.

[Anonymous]

I think the big question is, how serious is your DH about the position in Ashburn? Is it just a 2-3 year thing? Or long term?

If it is just a short-term gig, I think it would be bad to base a huge housing decision on it.

[Anonymous]

OP, you really need to think about today's traffic. Nuff said.