How to tell the difference between close-in suburbs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seattleite here- We moved from Wallingford in 2009 and by pure chance ended up in Del Ray. This by far the closest thing you'll find that will fit. Maybe small pockets of Arlington or Takoma Park. Everything else is pure suburban hell. Don't even consider Mclean, Reston, Falls Church, Silver Spring, Vienna.

Those places are like telling someone to move to North Gate if they were relocating to Seattle.

Ignore the hate on the schools. My daughters are excelling- oldest went to UVA with admissions to W and M, Northwestern and Denison.

Ummm Northgate doesn’t have a metro to get you into Seattle and close-in Silver Spring is not “pure suburban hell”. It’s close to DC with good schools and some diverse housing stock in nice neighborhoods. By the sounds of it you haven’t spent much time here. I’m glad you love Del Ray but sheesh

lol right? there are pockets of urbanity scattered throughout the region - Silver Spring kinda reminds me of parts of Queens where you have great transit access to "the city" and it's extremely diverse.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know what Northgate is but I am kind of laughing at the idea that there is an area that is simultaneously just like downtown Silver Spring, Potomac, McLean and somehow not Del Ray. Those are pretty different areas.

[Anonymous]

This is just my perspective. I've lived in DC 20 years and have friends from these areas:

Close-in Bethesda: Upscale, more money conscious. Family friendly but not very diverse. Traffic can be bad. It has a "nice" vine that is also a bit bubble-like. My friends talk about things like how when their kids are old enough to go to college, it will be a good experience for them to be around different types of people with more socioeconomic status diversity. It kind of has this, "it's nice, but insular" vibe.

Glen Echo: Crunchier. Not any more diverse but people seem less status-conscious. People really like the history and the trees, they talk about it like they are living in this special little enchanted enclave. My friends live right near the river and carry their kayak across the street and kayak all the time. It has that, "I could afford Bethesda but I don't want to live there" vibe.

Arlington: Definitely more diverse in terms of people and economic status. There are lovely pockets of very family friendly neighborhoods, but there are also congested, more urban-like parts with tall buildings, traffic, noise. There are also more singles (lots of huge apartment buildings) but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad vibe. It just skews younger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another vote for Del Ray or Beverly Hills in Alexandria. Great place for families with lots to do, very friendly
Locals and nice housing stock. Ignore the hate on here about the Alexandria city schools. Aim for Mt Vernon or Barrett or Maury elementary schools. The middle school and high school are also good if you take an interest in your child’s education and/or your child is motivated to learn. Plenty of kids go to ivies and other excellent colleges. And as Amazon moves here the schools will only get better.

Kensington is also a nice place if you find a block where you don’t get much traffic noise.

Kensington could be Del Ray but nicer if it swapped 50% of its antique stores for restaurants and boutiques and put a moratorium on senior housing developments.

[Anonymous]

I would have said Arlington a year ago; but anything decent in north Arlington is over your budget.
Bethesda is not much better, but more liberal and may be more like Washington state; just not as pretty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another vote for Del Ray or Beverly Hills in Alexandria. Great place for families with lots to do, very friendly
Locals and nice housing stock. Ignore the hate on here about the Alexandria city schools. Aim for Mt Vernon or Barrett or Maury elementary schools. The middle school and high school are also good if you take an interest in your child’s education and/or your child is motivated to learn. Plenty of kids go to ivies and other excellent colleges. And as Amazon moves here the schools will only get better.

Kensington is also a nice place if you find a block where you don’t get much traffic noise.

Kensington could be Del Ray but nicer if it swapped 50% of its antique stores for restaurants and boutiques and put a moratorium on senior housing developments.

+1000
- former Kensington resident

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seattleite here- We moved from Wallingford in 2009 and by pure chance ended up in Del Ray. This by far the closest thing you'll find that will fit. Maybe small pockets of Arlington or Takoma Park. Everything else is pure suburban hell. Don't even consider Mclean, Reston, Falls Church, Silver Spring, Vienna.

Those places are like telling someone to move to North Gate if they were relocating to Seattle.

Ignore the hate on the schools. My daughters are excelling- oldest went to UVA with admissions to W and M, Northwestern and Denison.

What years did your kids graduate? If 2020 or earlier, completely irrelevant. Things have changed dramatically in college admissions.

No, they haven't. Want to know how I know? I actually work in admissions for Georgetown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seattleite here- We moved from Wallingford in 2009 and by pure chance ended up in Del Ray. This by far the closest thing you'll find that will fit. Maybe small pockets of Arlington or Takoma Park. Everything else is pure suburban hell. Don't even consider Mclean, Reston, Falls Church, Silver Spring, Vienna.

Those places are like telling someone to move to North Gate if they were relocating to Seattle.

Ignore the hate on the schools. My daughters are excelling- oldest went to UVA with admissions to W and M, Northwestern and Denison.

Ummm Northgate doesn’t have a metro to get you into Seattle and close-in Silver Spring is not “pure suburban hell”. It’s close to DC with good schools and some diverse housing stock in nice neighborhoods. By the sounds of it you haven’t spent much time here. I’m glad you love Del Ray but sheesh

lol right? there are pockets of urbanity scattered throughout the region - Silver Spring kinda reminds me of parts of Queens where you have great transit access to "the city" and it's extremely diverse.

Yeah. Silver Spring is juuuust like Queens

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP, I’d like in on this. We want everything that OP wants but would also like a close-in commute to capital hill (45 mins or under), would prefer walkable to a metro, would love to be able to walk to some restaurants, but also would like a decent yard. Like a 10,000 sf lot or larger ideally. Our budget is $2m and we need at least 4 bedrooms. Where should we be looking ideally?

I don’t think N Arlington has 10,000SF lots walkable to metro. Anyone else know?

Yeah not that I know it with a lot that big. unless you don’t mind walking for 20 mins. And It’d be over 2m

There are a handful of 10,000-20,000sf lots in Lyon Park/Ashton Heights that are <1 mile from metro.

Get out of town. Really??? Can you share an example?

I mean none of them are for sale right now...they rarely come up as you might imagine, but click around on Arlington's parcel map and you'll see quite a few

https://gis.arlingtonva.us/Html5Viewer/Index.html?viewer=ACMaps.HTML5#

A few examples:

230 N Highland
304 N Highland
303 N Irving
309 N Irving

There are actually quite a few - they're mostly south of Pershing between 1st Rd and 2nd Rd or backing up the cemetery.

One big lot on Jackson sold and is currently having a moooonster house built on it - pool, pool house, main house, garage with space above it. The story I heard is that the prior owners bought the house for $1.3m in 2019 and a year later the current owners knocked on the door and said "how much would it take for you to sell us this house?" and they said $1.7m and got it. Sold almost one year to the day after they bought it for $400K more. I think the lot on that is 19,XXXsf.

Wow! Thanks for all this info. I had no clue.

I had one in Va Square for about a decade where my ex and I built a house. It was fantastic. Couldn’t afford to live there now, though.

And this, folks, is why you rent your old place rather than selling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP, I’d like in on this. We want everything that OP wants but would also like a close-in commute to capital hill (45 mins or under), would prefer walkable to a metro, would love to be able to walk to some restaurants, but also would like a decent yard. Like a 10,000 sf lot or larger ideally. Our budget is $2m and we need at least 4 bedrooms. Where should we be looking ideally?

Your dream does not exist here. Anyone saying otherwise, post a pic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP, I’d like in on this. We want everything that OP wants but would also like a close-in commute to capital hill (45 mins or under), would prefer walkable to a metro, would love to be able to walk to some restaurants, but also would like a decent yard. Like a 10,000 sf lot or larger ideally. Our budget is $2m and we need at least 4 bedrooms. Where should we be looking ideally?

I don’t think N Arlington has 10,000SF lots walkable to metro. Anyone else know?

Yeah not that I know it with a lot that big. unless you don’t mind walking for 20 mins. And It’d be over 2m

There are a handful of 10,000-20,000sf lots in Lyon Park/Ashton Heights that are <1 mile from metro.

Get out of town. Really??? Can you share an example?

I mean none of them are for sale right now...they rarely come up as you might imagine, but click around on Arlington's parcel map and you'll see quite a few

https://gis.arlingtonva.us/Html5Viewer/Index.html?viewer=ACMaps.HTML5#

A few examples:

230 N Highland
304 N Highland
303 N Irving
309 N Irving

There are actually quite a few - they're mostly south of Pershing between 1st Rd and 2nd Rd or backing up the cemetery.

One big lot on Jackson sold and is currently having a moooonster house built on it - pool, pool house, main house, garage with space above it. The story I heard is that the prior owners bought the house for $1.3m in 2019 and a year later the current owners knocked on the door and said "how much would it take for you to sell us this house?" and they said $1.7m and got it. Sold almost one year to the day after they bought it for $400K more. I think the lot on that is 19,XXXsf.

Wow! Thanks for all this info. I had no clue.

I had one in Va Square for about a decade where my ex and I built a house. It was fantastic. Couldn’t afford to live there now, though.

And this, folks, is why you rent your old place rather than selling.

Lol no, needed the $$ for a house in a different place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seattleite here- We moved from Wallingford in 2009 and by pure chance ended up in Del Ray. This by far the closest thing you'll find that will fit. Maybe small pockets of Arlington or Takoma Park. Everything else is pure suburban hell. Don't even consider Mclean, Reston, Falls Church, Silver Spring, Vienna.

Those places are like telling someone to move to North Gate if they were relocating to Seattle.

Ignore the hate on the schools. My daughters are excelling- oldest went to UVA with admissions to W and M, Northwestern and Denison.

Ummm Northgate doesn’t have a metro to get you into Seattle and close-in Silver Spring is not “pure suburban hell”. It’s close to DC with good schools and some diverse housing stock in nice neighborhoods. By the sounds of it you haven’t spent much time here. I’m glad you love Del Ray but sheesh

lol right? there are pockets of urbanity scattered throughout the region - Silver Spring kinda reminds me of parts of Queens where you have great transit access to "the city" and it's extremely diverse.

Yeah. Silver Spring is juuuust like Queens

DP. You can laugh all you want. My DH grew up in Queens and that's exactly why he loves Silver Spring. It feels like home to him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP, I’d like in on this. We want everything that OP wants but would also like a close-in commute to capital hill (45 mins or under), would prefer walkable to a metro, would love to be able to walk to some restaurants, but also would like a decent yard. Like a 10,000 sf lot or larger ideally. Our budget is $2m and we need at least 4 bedrooms. Where should we be looking ideally?

Your dream does not exist here. Anyone saying otherwise, post a pic.

4+ bed houses on 10,000+ sf walking distance to metro? They exist but they're not for sale.

Anecdotally the houses that fit this description often have "last sold" dates in the 70s/80s/early 90s. I even found one that last sold outside the family in the 1950s and has just bounced around family members since. Seems like these folks know they have a precious thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there something like Del Ray in MD? (Commute issue)

Takoma Park. Some parts of DTSS and Kensington.

The secret of these places is that they’re pretty expensive, so they’re not as humble and down to earth as their vibe would suggest. They’re still cute and walkable, but not affordable for most people.

Completely disagree. SFHs in Del Ray are in the 1.2-1.7 range so these are people that could very easily afford McLean, Great Falls, Potomac, Bethesda.

They just don't want to. Because they are down to earth rather than obnoxious, ostentatious new money people.

LOL, yes, 1.2 - 1.7 actually is expensive. Get out of your bubble, PP. If you think that people who can afford homes that expensive are down to earth… SMH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP, I’d like in on this. We want everything that OP wants but would also like a close-in commute to capital hill (45 mins or under), would prefer walkable to a metro, would love to be able to walk to some restaurants, but also would like a decent yard. Like a 10,000 sf lot or larger ideally. Our budget is $2m and we need at least 4 bedrooms. Where should we be looking ideally?

Your dream does not exist here. Anyone saying otherwise, post a pic.

$2.4 but here: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/36-Quincy-St-Chevy-Chase-MD-20815/37168220_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare