recommend a neighborhood in or nearMclean for 800K

[Anonymous]

West Lewinsville

Southridge

Grassridge

Broyhill Estates

[Anonymous]

Still think something like this in Vienna is preferable at that price range:

http://franklymls.com/FX7999328

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shouse Village...good luck getting a house there though...they rarely go up for sale

Avoid Shouse Village. Our agent said the word-on-the-street is that many homes in Shouse Village have structural issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would look at 22101 (the older part of mclean and eastern side of 123), falls church 22046, 22043, and vienna 22180 and 22182.

We live in the northern part of falls church (not city, but near mclean and N arlington 22207) and we love it. There are a bunch of $800k homes that would fit the bill in these zip codes.

For $800K, expect the homes in northern part of Falls Church (22043, 22046) to be 50-60 years old... split level, split foyer, rambler, etc. The streets dark with overgrown trees and no sidewalks or drainage. There are some clean looking areas, but it's mostly townhouses that were built after 1980's.

For that price, look in McLean east of 123. The homes are slightly younger (1960s - 1970s) and most have sidewalks. Vienna is little further out, but they have newer homes than the first two communities.

[Anonymous]

For $800K, expect the homes in northern part of Falls Church (22043, 22046) to be 50-60 years old... split level, split foyer, rambler, etc. The streets dark with overgrown trees and no sidewalks or drainage. There are some clean looking areas, but it's mostly townhouses that were built after 1980's.

For that price, look in McLean east of 123. The homes are slightly younger (1960s - 1970s) and most have sidewalks. Vienna is little further out, but they have newer homes than the first two communities.

To the person who wrote that this area is "dark" with overgrown trees and no sidewalks and drainage, I live in this area and that's not the first way I'd describe it.

I live in a 1960s rambler that in any other part of the country would be $200k, but here it was just appraised at $700k. That said it is 2400 sq ft, in an awesome location, with great schools and great neighbors. Yes, this is not what I initially dreamed my home would look like, but I really have grown to love the rambler layout. Also, older homes definitely have some positives, and 1970s' - 80's homes aren't that much more beautiful, plus you are further out of the city/Mclean.

Also I commute to Maryland and it is very easy from where I live. (via 495 or chain bridge).
Anyway, good luck on the house hunt, OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouse Village...good luck getting a house there though...they rarely go up for sale

Avoid Shouse Village. Our agent said the word-on-the-street is that many homes in Shouse Village have structural issues.

Your agent was probably hoping to upsell you on a McMansion. My sister lives there and the homes there are no different than the older homes in McLean. They were built in the early 70s and their condition varies based on how well they've been taken care of over the years. But that is the sort of thing you would work through with a home inspector. The neighborhood has a pool, sidewalks (a rarity), no thru traffic, beautiful landscaping, and a killer pyramid (Colvin Run/Longfellow/McLean) so at that price point you would be hard pressed to do much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

For $800K, expect the homes in northern part of Falls Church (22043, 22046) to be 50-60 years old... split level, split foyer, rambler, etc. The streets dark with overgrown trees and no sidewalks or drainage. There are some clean looking areas, but it's mostly townhouses that were built after 1980's.

For that price, look in McLean east of 123. The homes are slightly younger (1960s - 1970s) and most have sidewalks. Vienna is little further out, but they have newer homes than the first two communities.

To the person who wrote that this area is "dark" with overgrown trees and no sidewalks and drainage, I live in this area and that's not the first way I'd describe it.

I live in a 1960s rambler that in any other part of the country would be $200k, but here it was just appraised at $700k. That said it is 2400 sq ft, in an awesome location, with great schools and great neighbors. Yes, this is not what I initially dreamed my home would look like, but I really have grown to love the rambler layout. Also, older homes definitely have some positives, and 1970s' - 80's homes aren't that much more beautiful, plus you are further out of the city/Mclean.

Also I commute to Maryland and it is very easy from where I live. (via 495 or chain bridge).
Anyway, good luck on the house hunt, OP!

agree, not all of the neighborhoods are like that many even the lower priced pimmit hills has sidewalks. That poster must not understand how large the zip codes span.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouse Village...good luck getting a house there though...they rarely go up for sale

Avoid Shouse Village. Our agent said the word-on-the-street is that many homes in Shouse Village have structural issues.

I wouldn't be surprised if some homes had issues, but the market speaks louder than your agent. Homes there sell very, very quickly.

[Anonymous]

We were looking for the same thing when we started our search in Mclean and Falls Church north of 66 a year or so ago. We fell in love with the Potomac Hills area even though there was nothing on the market we wanted at the time. A few months later a house came on the market, and we grabbed it. Love the neighborhood feel, sidewalks on a lot of the streets (but not all), walk to the local pool and playground nearby. The schools are amazing - Chesterbrook, Longfellow & Mclean high school. If your kid qualifies for AAP, you can opt to send them to Haycock, but a lot of people keep their AAP kids at Chesterbrook with its Level IV classes. A lot of older split foyer and split level homes, but many have been updated. I don't mind them as that is what I grew up with in the Midwest. I guess it just reminds me of home. Definitely made the right choice for us and we got our house well under 800K (but chose a house that needed remodeling).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouse Village...good luck getting a house there though...they rarely go up for sale

Avoid Shouse Village. Our agent said the word-on-the-street is that many homes in Shouse Village have structural issues.

Your agent was probably hoping to upsell you on a McMansion. My sister lives there and the homes there are no different than the older homes in McLean. They were built in the early 70s and their condition varies based on how well they've been taken care of over the years. But that is the sort of thing you would work through with a home inspector. The neighborhood has a pool, sidewalks (a rarity), no thru traffic, beautiful landscaping, and a killer pyramid (Colvin Run/Longfellow/McLean) so at that price point you would be hard pressed to do much better.

We considered Shouse Village when we were looking, but it's a school attendance island -- look at the boundary maps. The bus ride to Longfellow was long, and other less desirable schools were nearer geographically. We were worried about possible redistricting away from Longfellow/McLean so shied away from it.

[Anonymous]

There are some homes near Churchill elementary that I think are around 800K or less. The school pyramid is great: Churchill, Cooper, Langley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
We considered Shouse Village when we were looking, but it's a school attendance island -- look at the boundary maps. The bus ride to Longfellow was long, and other less desirable schools were nearer geographically. We were worried about possible redistricting away from Longfellow/McLean so shied away from it.

Not sure what schools you're talking about. The other middle/high school combinations serving nearby areas are Cooper/Langley, Kilmer/Marshall and Hughes/South Lakes. FCPS has suggested in its latest Capital Improvement Plan it might consider moving the part of Colvin Run that feeds into Longfellow/McLean to Cooper/Langley, but that was based on projections (as to future declines in the Cooper/Langley enrollments and increases in the Longfellow/McLean enrollments) that people who live in the Cooper/Langley district recently asserted were flawed.

Without clear indications of significant overcrowding at Longfellow/McLean due to Tysons growth, I doubt FCPS would change the Shouse Village boundaries. The SV area is part of an attendance island (created when FCPS administratively assigned a new apartment complex in Tysons to Kilmer/Marshall years ago), but kids from that area are actively involved in Longfellow/McLean activities, and I think Longfellow/McLean parents would object if the School Board grabbed additional SFH neighborhoods for Langley without a compelling reason to do so. As for Kilmer/Marshall and Hughes/South Lakes, those schools have growing enrollments, so it's hard to see why FCPS would move SV students to those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We considered Shouse Village when we were looking, but it's a school attendance island -- look at the boundary maps. The bus ride to Longfellow was long, and other less desirable schools were nearer geographically. We were worried about possible redistricting away from Longfellow/McLean so shied away from it.

Not sure what schools you're talking about. The other middle/high school combinations serving nearby areas are Cooper/Langley, Kilmer/Marshall and Hughes/South Lakes. FCPS has suggested in its latest Capital Improvement Plan it might consider moving the part of Colvin Run that feeds into Longfellow/McLean to Cooper/Langley, but that was based on projections (as to future declines in the Cooper/Langley enrollments and increases in the Longfellow/McLean enrollments) that people who live in the Cooper/Langley district recently asserted were flawed.

Without clear indications of significant overcrowding at Longfellow/McLean due to Tysons growth, I doubt FCPS would change the Shouse Village boundaries. The SV area is part of an attendance island (created when FCPS administratively assigned a new apartment complex in Tysons to Kilmer/Marshall years ago), but kids from that area are actively involved in Longfellow/McLean activities, and I think Longfellow/McLean parents would object if the School Board grabbed additional SFH neighborhoods for Langley without a compelling reason to do so. As for Kilmer/Marshall and Hughes/South Lakes, those schools have growing enrollments, so it's hard to see why FCPS would move SV students to those schools.

It's very clear that this island will become part of Marshall, South Lakes, or Langley in the near future. Not saying that this change is a bad thing, but ll one needs to do is simply look at a map. It logistically makes sense for FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We considered Shouse Village when we were looking, but it's a school attendance island -- look at the boundary maps. The bus ride to Longfellow was long, and other less desirable schools were nearer geographically. We were worried about possible redistricting away from Longfellow/McLean so shied away from it.

Not sure what schools you're talking about. The other middle/high school combinations serving nearby areas are Cooper/Langley, Kilmer/Marshall and Hughes/South Lakes. FCPS has suggested in its latest Capital Improvement Plan it might consider moving the part of Colvin Run that feeds into Longfellow/McLean to Cooper/Langley, but that was based on projections (as to future declines in the Cooper/Langley enrollments and increases in the Longfellow/McLean enrollments) that people who live in the Cooper/Langley district recently asserted were flawed.

Without clear indications of significant overcrowding at Longfellow/McLean due to Tysons growth, I doubt FCPS would change the Shouse Village boundaries. The SV area is part of an attendance island (created when FCPS administratively assigned a new apartment complex in Tysons to Kilmer/Marshall years ago), but kids from that area are actively involved in Longfellow/McLean activities, and I think Longfellow/McLean parents would object if the School Board grabbed additional SFH neighborhoods for Langley without a compelling reason to do so. As for Kilmer/Marshall and Hughes/South Lakes, those schools have growing enrollments, so it's hard to see why FCPS would move SV students to those schools.

It's very clear that this island will become part of Marshall, South Lakes, or Langley in the near future. Not saying that this change is a bad thing, but ll one needs to do is simply look at a map. It logistically makes sense for FCPS.

Nope. Many current boundaries would be quite different if FCPS simply did what "logistically makes sense" or "looked at a map." Keep in mind that FCPS has permitted students who live close to the Loudoun border to attend Langley for decades, even though they are closer to Herndon, South Lakes, and other schools. That makes little sense from a logistical perspective. FCPS also created a "Woodson island" in the middle of the Robinson attendance area that has been around for years (although this one may get eliminated shortly as part of the Lanier/Fairfax redistricting).

The McLean island will only get moved if current projections hold true and the enrollments at Cooper and Langley start to decline substantially. Otherwise, the forces of inertia are too great to precipitate a change.

[Anonymous]

We wound up in McLean Hamlet and it is "OK". DH and I had our sights on Shouse Village but a home never came on the market. (Rumor from our realtor was that many SV homes sell before hitting the MLS in person-to-person deals due to their high demand.) I still drive through sometimes to visit a former coworker who lives there. I wish we had held out for a home there.
(also, the idea of structural issue for an entire neighborhod is bogus. Your realtor just wanted to redirect you and/or couldn't get you a home there.)