What's the deal with Potomac?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We moved from CC MD to Potomac last year. For a 20% bump in price (from ~950 to ~1.15) we tripled our space (1900 to 5400 sq ft) and went from a 1/4 acre to three-acre lot.

Architecturally, we went from a dull upgraded 50's rambler in CC MD to a striking 70s modern house in the woods in Potomac. No contest.

The other big plus is that we now don't waste our time pondering the expense and time commitment of a country house -- we wake up in the country every day. And driving around the rolling hills and landscaped lots of Potomac is restful in a way the congestion of CC and Bethesda streets never was.

In practical terms, Potomac's not significantly further out - my new drive commute to Metro Center/DC is only 5-10 minutes longer (highways vs traffic lights).

As for 'walkability,' our experience was the "walkability" of CC MD and Bethesda was mostly a myth except for a handful of streets near Wisc Ave (i've actually never seen anyone but schoolchildren walk across Connecticut Ave). We walked nowhere. And driving two miles into Potomac Village for shopping and services now is a lot easier than driving the same distance into (and parking in) congested Bethesda was.

Why the good values in Potomac? A lot of original Potomac owners from the 1970s and 1980s became empty nesters -- and put their houses on the market -- simultaneously over the past decade, so that probably capped appreciation somewhat. As did the buzz around supposedly 'walkable' neighborhoods and the trendy disparagement on sites like these about so-called McMansions (because somehow 4500 sq ft Potomac colonials on two acre lots are aesthetically objectionable and nouveau riche in ways that grotesque 5500 sq ft Bethesda McBungalows on a fourth of an acre aren't...). I'm assuming that gap may right itself in the future, but even if it doesn't, we're happy to have the market's failure be our gain. At essentially the same price point, living in Potomac is a lot better for us than living in CC MD was.

So you moved at the height of the pandemic, and you're crowing about how your commute is only 5-10 minutes longer?

That, and the fact that you somehow believe Potomac is "the country," suggest that you don't have enough brain cells to fill a thimble. Good grief.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not sure what you are laughing at. You don’t seem to know anything about downtown Bethesda - which is not near River Road but rather Wisconsin Avenue.

Actually, it sounds like PP might know more about Bethesda geography than you do. Wisconsin Ave and downtown Bethesda are on Bethesda's eastern border. And yes, a small percentage of Bethesda homes are within a few blocks of that and are indeed within walking distance of downtown Bethesda. But the vast majority of Bethesda houses -- south of River Road and Mass Ave, west of Bradley Boulevard, behind Suburban Hospital or north of NIH, on the other side of the Beltway in Carderock or Westlake, aren't within walking distance of downtown Bethesda or any other "downtown" amenity (hey, let's stroll over to the McDonald's on River Road -- but don't get hit by a truck). Which makes the claims by residents of those neighborhoods to value Bethesda's supposed 'walkability' to be a little ...

Nobody who’s talking about how walkable Bethesda is talking about those areas. I agree that there’s little difference between areas out Bradley that are still in Bethesda and areas further out Bradley that are in Potomac. But when people are talking about Bethesda being walkable they’re talking about Wisconsin in donwtown Bethesda. I used to live on Rosedale and walked to work and almost everywhere else. We had one car.

That is like 5% of Bethesda and some of the priciest real estate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s far, and unfortunately has been ruined by large gaudy cheaply built late 90’s and 2000’s McMansions, so it just has an all around tacky, gross, cheap look to it. What’s the point of living in a outer suburban / semi-rural suburb if the picturesque, rural feel has been completely shattered by just ugly, ugly homes? Makes more sense to have an in city house, and then have a second farm property in a rural area that hasn’t been ruined yet like Loudoun or Albemarle counties.

I don’t get all the hate towards McMansions. Most of it is urban elitism anyways. Bethesda and Chevy Chase have a ton of the same type of homes as well, and there are also plenty of non-McMansion homes in Bethesda that are completely fugly/old/tiny/prison-cell-like that people will still pay $900k-$1.4M for because “wAlKaBiLiTy” and “cLoSeR tO dC.” Most neighborhoods in Bethesda are not even walkable and the difference in commute is only 8-15 minutes on average. Some people just want $1.4M-$1.8M homes that actually look and feel like $1.4-1.8M. I agree that actual walkable neighborhoods in Bethesda are preferable to living in a McMansion in Potomac, but most people don’t have the luxury to afford homes in even Potomac, but when a $1M-$1.3M budget only gets you a ratchet box colonial that looks like a frat house in a run down college town, looking further out for a nicer and more modern house is the obvious answer.

Cope harder. Bethesda sucks too — some of the poop neighborhoods in Bethesda are 100% littered with mcraftsmans, which are pretty heinous, but nothing compared to the Greek and Roman columned white and tan brick faux-architecture horrible homes in Potomac. Coupled with the fact that Montgomery county is a fiscally doomed county with zero jobs, and Potomac is a sure loser. It’s not the country, it’s a tacky suburb that was popular in the 90’s and 2000’s in the days when gas was cheap and baby boomers loved massive cheaply built houses of questionable architectural integrity.

You may have some decent points, but I think you'd be more effective in your communication style if you came across as a bit more calm.

[Anonymous]

So you moved at the height of the pandemic, and you're crowing about how your commute is only 5-10 minutes longer?

That, and the fact that you somehow believe Potomac is "the country," suggest that you don't have enough brain cells to fill a thimble. Good grief.

Thanks for the constructive tone. The following is intended for other readers.

I've been commuting from Potomac on and off for a year now. No doubt there's less traffic driving into DC from Potomac due to COVID, just like there was less traffic when I was driving in from CC MD in 2020 due to COVID, which was my baseline. It's a like for like comparison (it's not as if the pandemic spared Chevy Chase and traffic levels there are normal). It's curious how invested some people here are in informing others that their lived experience isn't valid.

Or, when it comes to Potomac, their apparent inability to grasp the basic geometry that travelling into DC from Potomac along the hypotenuse of a right triangle -- particularly if that hypotenuse is a high-speed road like GW Pkwy or Clara Barton -- can be significantly faster than their own impression of how long that trip would take if one combined Side A (Potomac to Bethesda/CC) and Side B (Bethesda/CC to downtown), along surface roads with traffic lights.

As for living in the country - yes, i'm on three (original growth) wooded acres, i see no neighbors, i hear no cars, i sit in my house and can look out at birds and foxes crossing my property. It's a low-density community, and the limited shops and restaurants here serve the local community rather than serve as a magnet for weekend visitors (a la Bethesda). It's precisely the kind of natural setting that most people look for in a country home (it's certainly a more natural environment than our house in the Hamptons was, or our friends' houses in Bethany). And for us it's obviated any sense we need to consider investing time and money in buying a country place, and spending painful hours in weekend traffic headed east or west. So for us, living in Potomac and accepting an additional 20 minutes or so commuting time three or four days a week is a worthwhile tradeoff, because unlike being on a CC MD street of quarter acre lots, it really feels like the country, every day. That's a real and significant benefit to living in Potomac (vis a vis closer-in MontCo suburbs) that I'm mentioning because it gets lost here on DCUM, where most of the 'commentary' about Potomac is just silly insults about the stylistic excesses (not limited to Potomac, in the real world) of a handful of top-end homes.

[Anonymous]

It’s arguably more livable than a rural area. But you may be underestimating the commute under normal conditions. But who knows if normal commuting will ever resume.

[Anonymous]

But you may be underestimating the commute under normal conditions.

Thanks, we'll see. I'm not denying that the drive downtown is likely to get longer when regular traffic resumes, but my principal concern is the delta between my unpleasant old commute from CC MD to Metro Center along the traffic lights of congested Connecticut Ave -- which will also get longer -- and now driving in on parkways from Potomac. The drive downtown from some communities inside the Beltway can be long, slow and unpleasant as well, which is what some people here seem to overlook (none of us drives like the crow flies -- our only options are to take available roads that vary greatly by capacity and avg speed). When I point out that my commute downtown from just outside the Beltway is not dramatically dissimilar to the commute of someone who lives in Bethesda just inside the Beltway but gets on 495 at River Road as well, I get a stupefied reaction like I've just discovered a tear in the time-space continuum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s far, and unfortunately has been ruined by large gaudy cheaply built late 90’s and 2000’s McMansions, so it just has an all around tacky, gross, cheap look to it. What’s the point of living in a outer suburban / semi-rural suburb if the picturesque, rural feel has been completely shattered by just ugly, ugly homes? Makes more sense to have an in city house, and then have a second farm property in a rural area that hasn’t been ruined yet like Loudoun or Albemarle counties.

I don’t get all the hate towards McMansions. Most of it is urban elitism anyways. Bethesda and Chevy Chase have a ton of the same type of homes as well, and there are also plenty of non-McMansion homes in Bethesda that are completely fugly/old/tiny/prison-cell-like that people will still pay $900k-$1.4M for because “wAlKaBiLiTy” and “cLoSeR tO dC.” Most neighborhoods in Bethesda are not even walkable and the difference in commute is only 8-15 minutes on average. Some people just want $1.4M-$1.8M homes that actually look and feel like $1.4-1.8M. I agree that actual walkable neighborhoods in Bethesda are preferable to living in a McMansion in Potomac, but most people don’t have the luxury to afford homes in even Potomac, but when a $1M-$1.3M budget only gets you a ratchet box colonial that looks like a frat house in a run down college town, looking further out for a nicer and more modern house is the obvious answer.

Cope harder. Bethesda sucks too — some of the poop neighborhoods in Bethesda are 100% littered with mcraftsmans, which are pretty heinous, but nothing compared to the Greek and Roman columned white and tan brick faux-architecture horrible homes in Potomac. Coupled with the fact that Montgomery county is a fiscally doomed county with zero jobs, and Potomac is a sure loser. It’s not the country, it’s a tacky suburb that was popular in the 90’s and 2000’s in the days when gas was cheap and baby boomers loved massive cheaply built houses of questionable architectural integrity.

Montgomery County will be fine. They don't need jobs. Everyone I know who lives in Potomac either has their own business or work in DC. There aren't many jobs in McLean or Great Falls, VA either. Folks work in the city.

How did you miss the existence of Tysons Corner and the Dulles corridor?

DP.. but those places are f* ugly. I cringe everytime I have to go near TC .

[Anonymous]

Who lives in all those big white Faux Chateaux on River Road?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who lives in all those big white Faux Chateaux on River Road?

We Indians love big fancy houses.

[Anonymous]

What wrong? You been asleep for three decades? Potomac is a relic of the 80s…just a third rate locale of dmv now.

[Anonymous]

Potomac has the best homes and lots in the DMV - now with the added benefit of good value because DCUM chatterers have, predictably, fallen for builders’ hype for their new cookie cutter bungalows on tiny lots and faux-downtown condos in that Paris of Montgomery County, Bethesda (after all, “I read it in Bethesda Magazine”). Your loss.

And complaining about the ostentation of new mansions has been the resort of fragile classists and resentful bigots since the Gilded Age - get over it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised by this too. Even $800k can get you a fairly nice house in Potomac that’s zoned for Churchill, and it’s still a good distance from DC.

Potomac seems like it was built up later than Bethesda was, so you’ll see more of those mid range McMansion subdivisions there than you will in Bethesda, which is an old inner ring suburb.

We are in the non-mansion part of Potomac, over by Churchill. 800k will not get you a “nice” house over here anymore - for that money you’re getting a decent lot and a house where nothing has been updated since 1970. But it’s still quite affordable in comparison to many other areas, very family friendly with lots of young growing families, we are within a fairly short distance to the Cabin John Village shopping center and the neighborhood pool, and overall we have been quite happy here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are houses so much cheaper/larger there than Bethesda, Kensington, etc? What's the culture like? Young families? Left leaning?

It's not as popular these days. People prefer to live closer in where they aren't as dependent on cars to drive everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who lives in all those big white Faux Chateaux on River Road?

We Indians love big fancy houses.

Not really funny.

[Anonymous]

People prefer to live closer in where they aren't as dependent on cars to drive everywhere.

People have been told the current trend is for walkable communities so they buy into small-lot communities like Bethesda and Chevy Chase MD and then end up driving everywhere anyway. Because realistically the vast majority of homes in Bethesda and Chevy Chase aren't within walking distance of commercial activity or other amenities either. Most of Bethesda was developed after WWII, around cars, and while Chevy Chase was an older streetcar suburb, most of it (and especially east of CT Ave) isn't walkable to anything except within a few blocks of the tiny/limited commercial strip on Brookville Rd.