Old Town Manassas

[Anonymous]

DH and I went to Old Town Manassas for the first time this evening and it was adorable. Very, very different from the Manassas you see when you get off of 66. A very quaint little town with a good number of stores and restaurants and an Amtrak/VRE train stop right in the middle of town. We walked past one house that is a 5-7 minute walk from the train station/restaurants/town square area and loved what we saw. It was awesome...and they were asking $414k for it. Seriously it was a house that would go for at least $750-$900k in Arlington. However, we worry that the novelty of Old Town will wear off and we will be stuck living in Manassas. Does anyone have any experience with this area? The VRE trip downtown is about an hour, which is as long as I spend in my car now to go into the office--if I have to commute I would rather do it where I can read, catch up on email, etc.

[Anonymous]

Old Town Manassas is very cute, but it's pretty small and the restaurants are only ok. Plus, you can't run any "real" errands there, so even though the town is charming, you will need to leave it a lot to get your stuff done. With that said, we make a point to ride the VRE Santa Train out of the Manassas station even though Burke is much closer to us because the town is so cute. But, that half day is enough to tide me over until the next year. Plus, the schools are only ok.

[Anonymous]

PP is right. Schools are so so. Also, what is your commute from the train station to your office? Can you walk easily or do you have to take metro/bus? All that adds time to your total commute.

[Anonymous]

Remember to factor in time getting to VRE and getting to your office. Of course that's a factor in your car, walking from the garage to your office, as well.

The schools in Manassas are not so great, though. I wouldn't rate Osbourn and the ES's as any worse than TC Williams/Wakefield and their associated feeders, though.

They do have some integration with Prince William County and Manassas Park City schools though, where if your kid is in a magnet/IB type program they can go there (at least at the HS level).

22:14, what do you mean by "real" errands?

[Anonymous]

Manassas is extremely far out. I anticipate that Prince William real estate will get worse and worse, if gas prices stay close to what they are now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Manassas is extremely far out. I anticipate that Prince William real estate will get worse and worse, if gas prices stay close to what they are now.

That's a pat answer. For that I'm going to find the Palisades carbecue thread and troll some more.

It's either pay $4000 a month for a place in Arlington or spend $2000 a month + $500 a month (that's 30 gallons a week) on gas for a similar place in western PWC.

If OP works downtown and has a job that can't be done 1-2 days a week from home or find a similar job in Reston or even Tysons, then I might reconsider.

OTOH, OP said she already spends an hour in the car ...