Did you waste your money buying a house to get access to MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whether you are a MCPS apologist or fighter of 2.0, you lost money buying a house to get access to MCPS. The decline of MCPS is one of the biggest reasons why areas beyond very close in Bethesda haven't recovered from the 2009 crash, its one of the reasons why Silver Spring never became the hot market that you saw Arlington become over the past 10 years.

Montgomery County doesn't offer much beyond schools. Professional jobs are all in DC, Virginia and Howard county. The good in-state universities and colleges are in VA. The better taxes are in VA. The cool factor of living in major city is in DC (and no walking to Fuddruckers in Silver Spring is not cool - LOL). It doesn't have cute little towns like Frederick. Since NOVA is very liberal now, Montgomery County doesn't even have being a blue state area as a draw.

MoCo used to be the place to go for the schools. Now it is becoming where to go to get more for your money of you can afford private schools or where to go to save money if you don't care about the quality of your schools.

Frederick is in MoCo, you idiot. Also, Marriott and Hilton have their global HQs in MoCo. UMD is an excellent, and ever-rising university.

Pretty sure Frederick is in Frederick County..

[Anonymous]

OMG!
Give it a rest .
Somebof you are determined to make others feel like they made a bad life decision. Guess what, we are ok, better than on and you are not smarter or wiser . Be happy with your life and leave us alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whether you are a MCPS apologist or fighter of 2.0, you lost money buying a house to get access to MCPS. The decline of MCPS is one of the biggest reasons why areas beyond very close in Bethesda haven't recovered from the 2009 crash, its one of the reasons why Silver Spring never became the hot market that you saw Arlington become over the past 10 years.

Montgomery County doesn't offer much beyond schools. Professional jobs are all in DC, Virginia and Howard county. The good in-state universities and colleges are in VA. The better taxes are in VA. The cool factor of living in major city is in DC (and no walking to Fuddruckers in Silver Spring is not cool - LOL). It doesn't have cute little towns like Frederick. Since NOVA is very liberal now, Montgomery County doesn't even have being a blue state area as a draw.

MoCo used to be the place to go for the schools. Now it is becoming where to go to get more for your money of you can afford private schools or where to go to save money if you don't care about the quality of your schools.

Frederick is in MoCo, you idiot. Also, Marriott and Hilton have their global HQs in MoCo. UMD is an excellent, and ever-rising university.

Frederick is in Frederick County..... And NIST, NIH and DOE all have offices in MoCo.

Not only do they have offices -- NIST and NIH have their HQs in MoCo, as far as I know. You also have big biomedical/pharma companies like Medimmune and AstraZeneca in Gaithersburg.

[Anonymous]

We moved to montgomery county mainly to be close to jobs at NIH. It wasn't really about schools although we were happy that there was more diversity in the schools here than where we came from.

[Anonymous]

More big companies based in MoCo:

Coventry Health Care
Lockheed Martin
Host Hotels & Resorts
Travel Channel
Ritz-Carlton
Robert Louis Johnson Companies (RLJ Companies)
Choice Hotels,
BAE Systems Inc
Hughes Network Systems
GEICO

[Anonymous]

Frederick County is a county is not in Montgomery County. It is a separate school system. In fact, one that many MCPS choose to send their kids to instead of MCPS.

You can't even begin to compare a few places like Hilton and NIST to the huge tech sector in VA, govt, policy, law, lobbyist, start ups in DC and all the growth in Howard.

LOL on the UMD is "ever rising". Yeah UMD is just about to over take UVA academically.

[Anonymous]

More big companies based in MoCo:

Coventry Health Care
Lockheed Martin
Host Hotels & Resorts
Travel Channel
Ritz-Carlton
Robert Louis Johnson Companies (RLJ Companies)
Choice Hotels,
BAE Systems Inc
Hughes Network Systems
GEICO

OK this is a sad little list but OK we'll all pretend its big. We'll also pretend that MCPS is as good as it was 10 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Frederick County is a county is not in Montgomery County. It is a separate school system. In fact, one that many MCPS choose to send their kids to instead of MCPS.

You can't even begin to compare a few places like Hilton and NIST to the huge tech sector in VA, govt, policy, law, lobbyist, start ups in DC and all the growth in Howard.

LOL on the UMD is "ever rising". Yeah UMD is just about to over take UVA academically.

so presumably you don't live in MoCo. Why are you posting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

More big companies based in MoCo:

Coventry Health Care
Lockheed Martin
Host Hotels & Resorts
Travel Channel
Ritz-Carlton
Robert Louis Johnson Companies (RLJ Companies)
Choice Hotels,
BAE Systems Inc
Hughes Network Systems
GEICO

OK this is a sad little list but OK we'll all pretend its big. We'll also pretend that MCPS is as good as it was 10 years ago.

A sad little list? Wow, you're nasty and ignorant.

MoCo is the epicenter of biotechnology for the Mid-Atlantic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_County,_Maryland#Economy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's question in the title of the thread, no, I didn't waste my money buying a house in MoCo. We spent within our budget for a house that met our needs and wants (500K), in a neighborhood we love and we're happy with the school our kids attend. I don't buy into the idea that you have to spend $$$$ for a W pyramid school. The people who buy into that notion are the ones who stand to be the most disappointed because they often overextend themselves on their house and expect perfection for that privilege and then somehow it's somebody else's fault.

+1

+2. I spent more than PP and did buy in a W school cluster, but nowhere did I overextend or feel that my money is wasted. I bought a lovely home in a safe family neighborhood within our budget. A lot of our friends and family are also in MoCo. The houses in my neighborhood are reasonably priced and have been flying off the market within days of being listed. The schools are still rated well. Clearly the system needssome work but these threads are kind of overdramatic and insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's question in the title of the thread, no, I didn't waste my money buying a house in MoCo. We spent within our budget for a house that met our needs and wants (500K), in a neighborhood we love and we're happy with the school our kids attend. I don't buy into the idea that you have to spend $$$$ for a W pyramid school. The people who buy into that notion are the ones who stand to be the most disappointed because they often overextend themselves on their house and expect perfection for that privilege and then somehow it's somebody else's fault.

+1

+2. I spent more than PP and did buy in a W school cluster, but nowhere did I overextend or feel that my money is wasted. I bought a lovely home in a safe family neighborhood within our budget. A lot of our friends and family are also in MoCo. The houses in my neighborhood are reasonably priced and have been flying off the market within days of being listed. The schools are still rated well. Clearly the system needssome work but these threads are kind of overdramatic and insane.

You both are far too reasonable for this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's question in the title of the thread, no, I didn't waste my money buying a house in MoCo. We spent within our budget for a house that met our needs and wants (500K), in a neighborhood we love and we're happy with the school our kids attend. I don't buy into the idea that you have to spend $$$$ for a W pyramid school. The people who buy into that notion are the ones who stand to be the most disappointed because they often overextend themselves on their house and expect perfection for that privilege and then somehow it's somebody else's fault.

+1

+2. I spent more than PP and did buy in a W school cluster, but nowhere did I overextend or feel that my money is wasted. I bought a lovely home in a safe family neighborhood within our budget. A lot of our friends and family are also in MoCo. The houses in my neighborhood are reasonably priced and have been flying off the market within days of being listed. The schools are still rated well. Clearly the system needssome work but these threads are kind of overdramatic and insane.

You both are far too reasonable for this thread.

Yup. We bought in a (shock!) non-W cluster with an overcrowded school. We just sold our house to upgrade to a bigger one. Our house sold after 9 days on the market (typical for our neighborhood) for the highest price since the real estate bubble. Nothing stays on the market for more than 3 weeks unless something is seriously wrong with it. Our neighborhood is friendly, safe, and we have cute shops and chain stores within a 5-10 min walk. We love it here.

[Anonymous]

We did OK selling in a W cluster but had lost money years ago on a Silver Spring house. I used to look at some of the NOVA houses that we almost bought the first time around and really want to scream. NOVA appreciated so much over the past 10 years! DC too. Financially, we would have been better off staying in our tiny, tiny DC house. The elementary schools in NW DC now look better than the MCPS ones.

[Anonymous]

Our house sold after 9 days on the market (typical for our neighborhood) for the highest price since the real estate bubble

Right but what people are noticing is that VA and DC have appreciated beyond the real estate bubble while MD is still under bubble prices. MCPS had a VERY strong reputation during the last real estate bubble. Prices soared and people spent $ further and further out. Many of the people who did this when they were just starting to have kids are in the age range that has felt 2.0 the most. For them its a double hit, the school system they bought into collapsed and the real estate recovery was sluggish as a result.

If you bought after the bubble crash and after 2.0 was rolled out, you're in a different situation. There was plenty of outrage when 2.0 rolled out and plenty of negative articles in local media about it. (Parents who had kids in upper elementary school had their kids actually knocked back two years in math to repeat things they had already learned. They were furious and now they are receiving affirmation that not only was that unnecessary but their kids were knocked back to learn a faulty way of doing math riddled with errors. ) If you spent five seconds researching MCPS back then you heard the warnings about 2.0 so there is less to complain about now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Our house sold after 9 days on the market (typical for our neighborhood) for the highest price since the real estate bubble

Right but what people are noticing is that VA and DC have appreciated beyond the real estate bubble while MD is still under bubble prices. MCPS had a VERY strong reputation during the last real estate bubble. Prices soared and people spent $ further and further out. Many of the people who did this when they were just starting to have kids are in the age range that has felt 2.0 the most. For them its a double hit, the school system they bought into collapsed and the real estate recovery was sluggish as a result.

If you bought after the bubble crash and after 2.0 was rolled out, you're in a different situation. There was plenty of outrage when 2.0 rolled out and plenty of negative articles in local media about it. (Parents who had kids in upper elementary school had their kids actually knocked back two years in math to repeat things they had already learned. They were furious and now they are receiving affirmation that not only was that unnecessary but their kids were knocked back to learn a faulty way of doing math riddled with errors. ) If you spent five seconds researching MCPS back then you heard the warnings about 2.0 so there is less to complain about now.

Hooray! Montgomery County housing prices are more affordable!

(Actually they aren't, not so's anybody noticed.)