We've been saving to move to upper NW...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it helps, we're in Petworth and everyone we know that's left has gone to MoCo. Mostly Takoma Park/Silver Spring, some to Bethesda. You'd be in good company if you ended up there!

Also in Petworth, my kids lucked into a J-R feeder and we are also probably suburb bound because the schools just aren't good enough to justify the cost of moving in bounds.

[Anonymous]

I second the rec for TP/SS -- and disagree strongly with the poster above about schools in those areas. My kids are in SS schools and are getting an excellent education.

With your budget, you could afford one of the Woodside neighborhoods. Here are two nice houses on the market now:

https://www.redfin.com/MD/Silver-Spring/1510-...-20910/home/11078998
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Silver-Spring/1005-...-20910/home/11078898

Tons of former DC (Cap Hill, Petworth, Columbia Heights) families in 20910.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok I don’t know if this will help.

I grew up in that area. So I know it really well. I’ve also lived there and other places as an adult.

It’s just not that different! It’s truly not. It feels like this important brass ring because it’s so expensive, but it’s only so expensive because it is finite and there is a bigger pool of people who want to live there than can. That’s it! That’s what’s driving up the cost. It’s just demand. It’s not the great things about the neighborhoods, which are great! They’re just not great enough to justify the cost.

There are a LOT of other neighborhoods where your life will be 95% or more the same, that cost a lot less. That have most or all of the great things and other things CCDC doesn’t have, like mudrooms and diversity. You need to identify what you want to walk to, as a priority. Also be open to the idea that your life will change a bit. I used to walk to the corner grocery store like 3x/week and I thought it was important to me to be able to walk to a grocery store. Now I use my car more and consolidate my trips so I don’t care about that and I just want a Whole Foods with easy parking.

If you think you can only be happy in upper Northwest, I have some bad news. You just can’t be happy, or don’t want to. There’s no level of wealth that will help you with that. There are good schools in lots of places and families who have all kinds of problems with Lafayette etc. There’s no guarantee your kids will be happy and successful at Lafayette just because the neighborhood is expensive. If they can be happy and successful at Lafayette, they can almost certainly be happy and successful in Takoma Park or Silver Spring or Rockville or wherever. Your kids are the most important factor. No school is perfect or a cure all.

Here’s the other thing - the reasons CCDC is desirable are the features that were built in to appeal to some of the worst things about our not so distant community history. I’m not saying the people there now are responsible or the factors are all still the same or they don’t exist elsewhere. But it requires and deserves interrogation and conscious decision making.

I appreciate this post but I do think you're implying more than what I said. I was lamenting that all our house savings for a specific goal have been wasted. I didn't say I would never be happy. I don't think it's crazy to work toward a goal for 4 years, realize you'll never achieve it, and feel sad about that.

Agree with you OP -- we aren't in the same exact shoes as you - but also disappointed that we haven't yet been able to buy due to the sharp increase in prices. Where/details don't matter. It is disappointing. I hope something changes but I don't see it happening yet...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok I don’t know if this will help.

I grew up in that area. So I know it really well. I’ve also lived there and other places as an adult.

It’s just not that different! It’s truly not. It feels like this important brass ring because it’s so expensive, but it’s only so expensive because it is finite and there is a bigger pool of people who want to live there than can. That’s it! That’s what’s driving up the cost. It’s just demand. It’s not the great things about the neighborhoods, which are great! They’re just not great enough to justify the cost.

There are a LOT of other neighborhoods where your life will be 95% or more the same, that cost a lot less. That have most or all of the great things and other things CCDC doesn’t have, like mudrooms and diversity. You need to identify what you want to walk to, as a priority. Also be open to the idea that your life will change a bit. I used to walk to the corner grocery store like 3x/week and I thought it was important to me to be able to walk to a grocery store. Now I use my car more and consolidate my trips so I don’t care about that and I just want a Whole Foods with easy parking.

If you think you can only be happy in upper Northwest, I have some bad news. You just can’t be happy, or don’t want to. There’s no level of wealth that will help you with that. There are good schools in lots of places and families who have all kinds of problems with Lafayette etc. There’s no guarantee your kids will be happy and successful at Lafayette just because the neighborhood is expensive. If they can be happy and successful at Lafayette, they can almost certainly be happy and successful in Takoma Park or Silver Spring or Rockville or wherever. Your kids are the most important factor. No school is perfect or a cure all.

Here’s the other thing - the reasons CCDC is desirable are the features that were built in to appeal to some of the worst things about our not so distant community history. I’m not saying the people there now are responsible or the factors are all still the same or they don’t exist elsewhere. But it requires and deserves interrogation and conscious decision making.

I appreciate this post but I do think you're implying more than what I said. I was lamenting that all our house savings for a specific goal have been wasted. I didn't say I would never be happy. I don't think it's crazy to work toward a goal for 4 years, realize you'll never achieve it, and feel sad about that.

I think you’re making my point. People who are resilient and able to be happy would realize that the goal is not a particular patch of soil, it’s a particular lifestyle that they want for their family. And that is easily within your grasp. You’re determined to defeat from the jaws of victory. That’s more about you and your outlook than the real estate market. It suggests that even if you bought a house in CCDC, you’d soon find another thing to be unhappy about.

*snatch defeat, excuse me.

[Anonymous]

Seems like a good thing to be priced out of upper NW whether to end up cash poor and realizing that Deal and Jackson-Reed are not really very good and that you now need money for private schools on top of the mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 3 bedroom smallish ( 1700 sf ) nicely renovated house in AU Park shows 800+$ per SF on Zillow and about 1.4$m (down from $1.6m at peak) and l know there are other similar houses here without a massive addition. Zillow typically $600 - $900 / sf, so in your budget for the smaller houses. But nobody is selling? Are you being picky in other ways like you only want a very quiet street?

Well as some posters pointed out, I suppose I was being picky in that I was hoping for a SFH. But other than that, my standards aren't that high. But just because zillow shows that estimate doesn't mean there are houses to buy.

Previous poster here. Sorry there’s no inventory. I totally get why you’re disappointed.

Isn’t there usually an uptick in listings in April?

I think inventory will increase. Its january - of course there isn't a ton of inventory

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems like a good thing to be priced out of upper NW whether to end up cash poor and realizing that Deal and Jackson-Reed are not really very good and that you now need money for private schools on top of the mortgage.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 3 bedroom smallish ( 1700 sf ) nicely renovated house in AU Park shows 800+$ per SF on Zillow and about 1.4$m (down from $1.6m at peak) and l know there are other similar houses here without a massive addition. Zillow typically $600 - $900 / sf, so in your budget for the smaller houses. But nobody is selling? Are you being picky in other ways like you only want a very quiet street?

Well as some posters pointed out, I suppose I was being picky in that I was hoping for a SFH. But other than that, my standards aren't that high. But just because zillow shows that estimate doesn't mean there are houses to buy.

This attached house (one one side only!) is cute, WELL in your budget and is close to the metro. If I were looking, I'd be interested. https://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/3703-Alb...W-20016/home/9972130

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Prices have increased at a higher rater than salaries, OP. You knew that, right?

Everyone is in the same boat.

We're still not sure if the US can avoid a recession in 2023 and 2024, but even if there is a recession, upper NW, Bethesda, Chevy Chase and some areas of NoVa will always increase in price.

So unless you're benefiting from free preK in DC, I'd move to MD or VA right away, in an area with great public schools and public transport - not necessarily to put your kids in there, but to guarantee the continued value of your house. It's an investment consideration. Of course the excellent public school clusters will also be expensive. I'm in Bethesda just west of downtown, and houses are 2M+ here.

Obviously I know this. But we're saving 50% of our HHI every year, and so we are saving more quickly than COLA adjustments. I just can't keep up with $200k+ spikes in prices every year. I'm allowed to express a little sadness anonymously right?

$2m in walkable Bethesda does not help my situation

I'm trying to talk DH into considering Takoma Park or Silver Spring.

You can easily buy a walkable Bethesda home for 1.5 and less. Try East Bethesda (not Edgemoor) which has smaller SFHs and walkable to everywhere, including metro.

[Anonymous]

OP, this home on your budget, offering everything you said you need sold last months, but because it’s not SFH you would not have considered it. There are plenty of homes out there in your price range, the realty is you need to adjust your expectations, refusing to compromise is not an option. That same home would have sold for 1.7 a year ago. The market has corrected, not correcting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Prices have increased at a higher rater than salaries, OP. You knew that, right?

Everyone is in the same boat.

We're still not sure if the US can avoid a recession in 2023 and 2024, but even if there is a recession, upper NW, Bethesda, Chevy Chase and some areas of NoVa will always increase in price.

So unless you're benefiting from free preK in DC, I'd move to MD or VA right away, in an area with great public schools and public transport - not necessarily to put your kids in there, but to guarantee the continued value of your house. It's an investment consideration. Of course the excellent public school clusters will also be expensive. I'm in Bethesda just west of downtown, and houses are 2M+ here.

We're at a weird point where if you have to save to build a down payment, you likely will never actually get the house you want because the rate at which you can save and earn a return on the savings is going to be dwarfed by appreciation. I'd say something has to give, but the only difference between now and 15 years ago is that now it's people trying to save 1.5 million for the SFH home and then it was people trying to save 1M for that same home

You’re not lying

[Anonymous]

With the population increasing and housing supply not keeping up, saving for a home in a given neighborhood will always be a moving target. It sucks. On the bright side, OP with $1.5 million you can afford a much nicer house/location than 99% of people in the region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok I don’t know if this will help.

I grew up in that area. So I know it really well. I’ve also lived there and other places as an adult.

It’s just not that different! It’s truly not. It feels like this important brass ring because it’s so expensive, but it’s only so expensive because it is finite and there is a bigger pool of people who want to live there than can. That’s it! That’s what’s driving up the cost. It’s just demand. It’s not the great things about the neighborhoods, which are great! They’re just not great enough to justify the cost.

There are a LOT of other neighborhoods where your life will be 95% or more the same, that cost a lot less. That have most or all of the great things and other things CCDC doesn’t have, like mudrooms and diversity. You need to identify what you want to walk to, as a priority. Also be open to the idea that your life will change a bit. I used to walk to the corner grocery store like 3x/week and I thought it was important to me to be able to walk to a grocery store. Now I use my car more and consolidate my trips so I don’t care about that and I just want a Whole Foods with easy parking.

If you think you can only be happy in upper Northwest, I have some bad news. You just can’t be happy, or don’t want to. There’s no level of wealth that will help you with that. There are good schools in lots of places and families who have all kinds of problems with Lafayette etc. There’s no guarantee your kids will be happy and successful at Lafayette just because the neighborhood is expensive. If they can be happy and successful at Lafayette, they can almost certainly be happy and successful in Takoma Park or Silver Spring or Rockville or wherever. Your kids are the most important factor. No school is perfect or a cure all.

Here’s the other thing - the reasons CCDC is desirable are the features that were built in to appeal to some of the worst things about our not so distant community history. I’m not saying the people there now are responsible or the factors are all still the same or they don’t exist elsewhere. But it requires and deserves interrogation and conscious decision making.

I appreciate this post but I do think you're implying more than what I said. I was lamenting that all our house savings for a specific goal have been wasted. I didn't say I would never be happy. I don't think it's crazy to work toward a goal for 4 years, realize you'll never achieve it, and feel sad about that.

I think you’re making my point. People who are resilient and able to be happy would realize that the goal is not a particular patch of soil, it’s a particular lifestyle that they want for their family. And that is easily within your grasp. You’re determined to defeat from the jaws of victory. That’s more about you and your outlook than the real estate market. It suggests that even if you bought a house in CCDC, you’d soon find another thing to be unhappy about.

This. I live in CCDC, and I wish I had bought in MD or VA. (No in state tuition or state preference when applying to college and Deal/JR aren't all they are cracked up to be)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, this home on your budget, offering everything you said you need sold last months, but because it’s not SFH you would not have considered it. There are plenty of homes out there in your price range, the realty is you need to adjust your expectations, refusing to compromise is not an option. That same home would have sold for 1.7 a year ago. The market has corrected, not correcting

https://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/1510-16th...22209/home/101388655

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, this home on your budget, offering everything you said you need sold last months, but because it’s not SFH you would not have considered it. There are plenty of homes out there in your price range, the realty is you need to adjust your expectations, refusing to compromise is not an option. That same home would have sold for 1.7 a year ago. The market has corrected, not correcting

https://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/1510-16th...22209/home/101388655

Those are the ugliest floors I've ever seen in my life. What are those? Vinyl?