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How did you figure it was time to move to MD (or not!)?
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Anonymous
| Has anyone ever done a cost/benefit analysis of staying in the district vs moving just over the line (to chevy chase or bethesda, md)? We need to live 1mile or less from a metro station and we want to stay near our current community in chevy chase dc. As we get further into the school system we can foresee the day that public/parish schools are not going to work for us. Did you consider most private schools equal to public school in mo co (we are thinking more middle and high schools)? What is the student/teacher ratio like in mo co and did that matter? Did you factor college years into the analysis and the $10K grant available from DC? How did you tackle resolving this - visit public and private schools even you won't apply for years? I anticipate houses are more expensive and taxes will higher in MD so did you consider that in the analysis? Thanks for your insight! |
Anonymous
| question I wrestle with daily...after paying off realtors, and rolling any profits into a new home, will I truly be ahead if I move? |
Anonymous
| Me too. My only child is still an infant, but I still spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out when/ if we will have to move across the line into MOCO schools. I would love to hear from others that have been there. |
Anonymous
| I'm thinking about this too. My guess is it would cost $200k more to find similar house in md. plus the cost of selling / buying house. maybe 80K. extra taxes - maybe 4K per year? so round to $300K. private middle school thru high school would be 30K x 6= 180K per kid. so more than 2 kids and you are definitely ahead. That is assuming alot of things. That you find the same value in the schools and in the neighborhood. College might balance out though. 10K back every year by living in DC. 40K per year. So with 2 kids going to public college out of private school in DC vs public in MOCO, two kids you might be even and three kids you would be better off in MD. |
Anonymous
that is a seriously good analysis, thanks there's also the issue of not needing a babysitter who drives and an extra car, in MD, cos DC has no buses, unless you're special ed I think, though, since it's hard to find even a rambler in chevychase for under 800k, the cost of transitioning may be closer to 120k...cos in that case, one would be in jumbo loan territory.... |
Anonymous
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Another thing to consider is that at the end of the day in MD you would presumably have more equity in a more expensive house. This could be used later on for retirement, especially if you downsize or move to a cheaper area.
Of course, if you had equity in your DC house and burn it up in paying the realtors and everybody else to sell and buy, then this offsets the MD gains. |
Anonymous
| PP - you are correct on the 200K in equity in the MD house. After the kids are gone, I would guess we would want to be in DC in a house like our own so the cost of moving back would be something to consider. But that seems way out there right now! What about buying a MD house, renting it and then moving in when needed for schools? And then moving back to DC later? |
Anonymous
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You are going too far.
Maybe your kids wont be here in dc, but will have decided settle in some other city. Maybe in 20 years DC will not be such a nice place to live. If you don't have a crystall ball. There is no use speculating |
Anonymous
or, one of MY thoughts, rent out my DC home, rent in MOCO for 10 yrs, sell my DC home, and move out to PG... |
Anonymous
| You have to factor in a lot of other issues - particularly will your child/children be able to get into a good private school in DC. We moved to MD b/c it eliminates the uncertainty factor; we know we have good schools, and we know the school factor will help us sell our house when the time comes. We were renters when we left DC, though -- that changes the equation dramatically. It was impossible to justify buying at the exorbitant rates necessary to get in a neighborhood with viable elementary schools - NW will cost you well above $650k at minimum for a small, older home - and then face the drama and expense of private school applications and tuition. We were able to find a house in the BCC district that cost less than any comparable home in our preferred DC neighborhoods (NW or close-in Capitol Hill), although we accepted a very imperfect house! The point is that you need to do more than crunch the numbers; figure out what your best alternatives are in each location, and weigh the pros and cons of each. Presumably the calculation differs for every family, depending on your preferences and lifestyle and commute and a million other factors. |
Anonymous
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Funny, one reason we stay in the city is because we figure that we'd rather put money into a higher mortgage than into buying and maintaining a second car over the course of the next 20 years.
PP, isn't another factor whether the house that you bought in BCC area will be worth as much as a house that you have forgone buying in a NW DC? Like another PP said, in some ways it is all a bit of a gamble in terms of what will happen to home prices in different areas. |
Anonymous
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PP here - no doubt, it's hard to forecast relative differences in home appreciation. I think both NW and close-in MoCo are pretty safe bets, although if we'd really been all about maximizing the future price increase we probably would have bought in somewhere still gentrifying like Columbia Heights. What I was trying to get it is that it's more than a simple spreadsheet - not that this isn't important - but also that you have to think about what works best for you as a family. We're risk averse sedentary types who valued not having to deal with the private school merry-go-round and/or moving imperative at a time not of our choosing (i.e., simply for the school district rather than b/c we wanted to move.) That's definitely not going to be everyone's preference, I know! Point is that in making our decision, we crunched numbers but we also weighed a lot of intangible factors.
BTW, we've managed on 1 car in close-in MoCo as well, although 2 kids and 2 separate schools is forcing the issue -- as it would have in most parts of the District as well. We're not terribly green, we just never really felt the need for the past 6 yrs. |
Anonymous
That's assuming that the college assistance program is reauthorized beyond 2011. Right now it pays 10,000 above the cost of in-state tuition at public universities all over the country (and there is a smaller payment -- I think 2500 -- for private Historically Black Universities and Colleges) but it's only authorized until 2011 (the year dd graduates). Now, I'm guessing that even if it were downsized, it would still include Maryland and Virginia so I'm willing to take that bet. But you should be aware of that. Then again it's hard to predict everything. Right now I would say a house by the metro anywhere in DC is a great bet compared to outer suburbs, but, hey, we could still get a dirty bomb at the Capitol and my Capitol Hill neighborhood would go right down the tubes. It's hard to know what the situation will be like 10 or 15 years from now. |
Anonymous
| Just curious, why is it that people consider moving to MD rather than VA? VA has some terrific public universities, so that would seem to be going for it. |
Anonymous
| I think it is that you and your kids form friendships (and sports teams), go to churches, know the shopping, etc in NW DC and it is usually quite close. You don't want to give that all up. I agree the college options are better in Virginia. |