Brookland -- anyone live there?

Anonymous
That was going to be my question, what are the schools like in Brookland? Bunker Hill "used" to be really good, but this was 20 years ago. I don't hear much good about it or Brookland Elementary these days, so where are parents sending their kids to school?
Anonymous
From what I hear, as DD is only 2 and hasn't started school yet, most of the parents are doing charter schools. Stokes is in the neighborhood, as is Hope Charter School , and Yu Ying. There is also Two Rivers, which is over by Galludet, not far.
Anonymous
OP here. Thanks for the point about schools. The fact is, none of the neighborhoods we can afford would put us in bounds for very good to excellent schools. What we plan to do, if we cannot find and invest in a parents network similar to the one that made Peabody such a great choice for in bounds kids, is to suck it up and pay for private school for a few years of K and elementary while trying the lottery system at Peabody and the other good schools. I understand St. Marks is *only* 8 grand a year...
Anonymous
Have you looked in Park Place or Michigan Park, kinda close to Brookland, solid neighborhoods.
Anonymous
We looked a few houses in Michigan Park -- I was a little bit less satisfied with the walkability and thought it didn't seem quite as nice as Brookland. Our agent was also concerned about resale values. We haven't ruled out Michigan Park, but then again it's also getting a little bit further out than I'd like to go -- need to be close enough to the HIll to get there in 15-20 minutes tops in ccase I have a last minute meeting in order to preserve my work from home privelege. What is Park PLace? I haven't heard of it.
Anonymous
Park Place is right on the corner of Michigan and North Capitol, across from VA hospital. It is a gated community with condos and townhouses.
Anonymous
OP, what did you ultimately decide?
Anonymous
I live in Brookland and love it. There is crime but that's the city. Live close to the metro- the closer, the nicer. The east side of the metro is much better than Edgewood, to the west of the metro station.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who lived in Brookland and recently moved out of the area after being held at gunpoint on her front porch (while pregnant). Obvioustly, there can be isolated incidents anywhere, but I know this was not the first one for her and she started to feel unsafe with her baby there.


OMG it's you again.

NP here. OP, I live in Michigan Park (1 block from brookland, even lower crime but greatly reduced walkability to shops, etc, if that concerns you). I LOVE the area. When we were looking at houses in brookland, woodridge and Michigan Park, this poster posted this same thing. Crime can happen anywhere in the city. If you want a real view of crime look at the crime stat sites. Someone is going to tell you a story about getting held up in any and every neighborhood. It happens. Let me tell you, it's not happening all the time in brookland. I'm on all the listservs, including the MPD5 listserv. I hear about every incident. They are not frequent. When I lived on the Hill, there was about 5x the amount of crime. (we were nearer to the atlas district / hilleast). I love the Hill by the way, so that's not a diss.

There is some crime happening in two places near brookland that it is fair to point out. First, there have been an increase of muggings around the metro, mostly late at night. Be mindful in that area. Second, if you are a biker, the Met Branch trail is awesome but there has been a considerable uptick in crime in the area between rhode island and NY avenue (not brookland, but nearby).

We LOVE brookland and are huge boosters for the place. If you're interested in expanding beyond brookland, you might consider Michigan Park as well. (Note that there's a big difference between michigan park and North Michigan Park). Parts of Woodridge are also fantastic.

Good luck - and hope to see you at the playgroups!
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:OP, what did you ultimately decide?


O.M.G.

Dumbest and funniest post award goes to me. I just responded to my own post from years ago and just called out the person who talked about the woman getting held up. LOL! I'm a total dunce! I clearly need to read more carefully. It's funny, I was halfway through writing another response about the schools when the post I was responding to started sounding more and more familiar....I looked and sure enough it was my old post.

So, to answer your question: We moved to Michigan Park and love it. And we're in the midst of helping to reenergize the in-bounds school. Huge brookland area boosters here. I highly recommend it!
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:DH are on the hunt for a new house. We've looked at about one billion homes right now and are nervous about buying right now, given the market volatility. We are mainly looking in Capitol Hill, and Capitol Hill extended (Hill East and Atlas District). The main reason for this is that I work on or the Hill with and strongly prefer a short commute.

We feel strongly about city living, and while we would not rule out the closer-in suburbs, we are confident that we can find something that suits us in the city, which is where we want to remain.

This said, we are finding that many of the homes are appraising VERY low. Sellers are asking prices that seem fair to them (and necessary, frankly, because to ask less would be to sell short). Unfortunately, "the market" does not agree with these asking prices. Even 85-90 percent of the asking price is well over appraisal, and this makes lenders nervous. So for us to buy a new home, we need to find something that appraises well or go even lower than what we'd hoped to have our range be so that we can throw a little bit more cash at the downpayment. (We were planning to offer a more standard 20 percent).

The bigger issue for us is that we have some unique space needs. Because of our flexible hours, we have the need for a designated home office space for each of us (we can't share -- DH is an architect and his models and drafting tables take up an entire room). Because we will be offsetting child care between the two of us, we also need our home offices to be distinct from one another. We have one child on the way and expect to have at least one more child after this. So basically, we figure our basic needs are: 3 bedrooms up plus den and basement (either finished or finishable, but basically it has to be more than a utility basement). We do not want or need a separate rental unit, but would not rule a house like this out as that could be our office space.

Those are our inflexible needs. Our more flexible needs are that we would love to have a little bit of space -- a good backyard would be incredible. Because of the yard issue, we have started to look at Brookland (which is near Catholic University). The crime in the area is surprisingly low -- much lower than Hill East or the Atlas District. And the space you get there is incredible -- most of the homes have the kind of yards that you would not encounter elsewhere in the city except for perhaps foxhall / palisades / upper NW (which is too far away for us and way out of our price range).

Honestly, I feel we may be just about sold on Brookland. While I would miss some of the benefits of living on Capitol Hill, it's still really close. And the upside is all of that space. It would be a very long time before we would outgrow some of the spacious Brookland homes we've seen.

So my questions are twofold. First of all, anyone live in Brookland? If so can you share your honest assessment about what you like about the neighborhood, and what you don't like? I'm obviously concerned with safety but I've already visited the crime sites and feel pretty good about that. So i'm also talking about the neighborhood / sense of community aspect. Second question is to do with appraisal. I wonder if I should be nervous that Brookland houses are going to remain VERY flat or even drop further due to the market volatility while Hill East and Atlas District are expected to do better w/in 8-10 years? We are not looking to make money off of this home, but we don't want to be glued in a home and be so upside down that we couldn't sell for the next two decades without taking a steep haircut.

Our price range, FWIW, is up to 650K. we'd VERY much prefer to spend about 550. This includes great homes in Brookland, but not so great homes nearer to Cap Hill.

Thoughts? Thanks for reading through this long one!


I wonder if the lenders see that the DC market could fall out too.
Anonymous
I wonder if the lenders see that the DC market could fall out too.


Keep in mind that the original post is more than two years old. That was an ENTIRELY different housing and lending market then. Stop scaring people.
Anonymous
I get tired of these out of date anectdotal stories that supposedly prove how awful various east side neighborhoods are. My husband was held up at gunpoint in Glover Park-so what? Point is that Brookland, H St, and various neighborhoods have changed so much in the last 10 years. It is really apples to oranges.

OP, I wanted to recommend Eckington to you-which is my neighborhood. it is not quite as cheap as it was 2 yrs ago, but an easy commute to the hill (where i work). In the 650k range I think you can still get a giant victorian row house that should appraise better than H St, which unfortunately has better location but the quality of construction is not as good (H st area has lots of foundation issues and houses w/o basements built directly on the dirt, from what i have seen). Good luck!
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP, what did you ultimately decide?


O.M.G.

Dumbest and funniest post award goes to me. I just responded to my own post from years ago and just called out the person who talked about the woman getting held up. LOL! I'm a total dunce! I clearly need to read more carefully. It's funny, I was halfway through writing another response about the schools when the post I was responding to started sounding more and more familiar....I looked and sure enough it was my old post.

So, to answer your question: We moved to Michigan Park and love it. And we're in the midst of helping to reenergize the in-bounds school. Huge brookland area boosters here. I highly recommend it!


Thanks! I now have closure. We are looking for a house. We are torn between Somerset, MD and Brookland (and yes totally aware these are two totally different neighborhoods!). Leaning towards a Brookland house and gut remodel but we will decide when we hear about where my son gets into for K in the Spring.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I'm obviously concerned with safety but I've already visited the crime sites and feel pretty good about that. So i'm also talking about the neighborhood / sense of community aspect. Second question is to do with appraisal. I wonder if I should be nervous that Brookland houses are going to remain VERY flat or even drop further due to the market volatility while Hill East and Atlas District are expected to do better w/in 8-10 years? We are not looking to make money off of this home, but we don't want to be glued in a home and be so upside down that we couldn't sell for the next two decades without taking a steep haircut.


I don't live in Brookland, but I am a native of the area, I have looked in Brookland in the past, and my DH went to grad school at CUA for about 10 years.

As long as I can remember, Brookland has been "up and coming." From my perspective, the problem is that it has never really gotten there. That's cool if you don't want to live in Chevy Chase or whatever, but I think you need to be totally realistic about the schools and the safety in the neighborhood, as well as the property values over the long haul. Periodically people get lulled into a sense of security and then something like the shooting at Colonel Brooks' Tavern a few years back happens. It will never be Bethesda.

Some friends of ours lived in the neighborhood when they were both in grad school at CUA and when they would take their small child to the park, there were needles there.

So just bear that all in mind, ride the metro in the area, and walk the neighborhood before you make a decision.
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