Want to relocate to NoVa - where?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

the schools aren't overcrowded,

Arlington schools are considered overcrowded because average class size is smaller.

My kindergartner is one of 19 kids in a class with a teacher and an aide. Are Fairfax schools like that?

Bingo!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I honestly don't get the appeal of Arlington, unless you can afford a brand-new McMansion in a place like Lyon Village. Otherwise, why spend a ton of money on a tiny, ugly house on a postage-stamp size lot for the privilege of riding an aging subway system with a lousy record of reliability?

There are plenty of 1920s-1930s era large, center hall colonials and other historical styles in Lyon Village (especially north of Key Blvd), Tara, parts of Ashton Hts and Lyon Park, parts of Woodmont/Dover Crystal, Lee Heights/Donaldson Run, Country Club Hills, etc.... Arlington's older neighborhoods have long been admired for their architecture, and there are few crap houses in Lyon Village, Tara and similar neighborhoods that have always defined the upper end of the market below Country Club Hills. The McMansions are a relatively recent trend that doesn't really define Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

the schools aren't overcrowded,

Arlington schools are considered overcrowded because average class size is smaller.

My kindergartner is one of 19 kids in a class with a teacher and an aide. Are Fairfax schools like that?

Yes, there are quite a few Fairfax schools where the average kindergarten class was around 19 students last year. At our local school, it was 21 students. I'll gladly trade the two extra students per class for not having to worry about sending my kids to a school with 2500+ students (as is now projected for W-L) or possibly getting reassigned to Wakefield.

[Anonymous]

If you want to be sure your child will be in schools with a small total student population, you aren't going to be happy with Arlington.
Lots of the elementary schools have 500+ kids.

If you're worried about class size, that's a different matter.

[Anonymous]

My kindergartner is one of 19 kids in a class with a teacher and an aide. Are Fairfax schools like that?

All K classes in FCPS have a full time aide. The class sizes in K-2 tend to be small, but they do get larger in grades 3+. It's is deceptive to look at lower elementary class sizes because the ratios are different. Not at all schools have much larger class sizes in upper grades of course, but there are definitely elementary classes in FCPS with 28-32 kids. (But I don't think FCPS is unique in this.) We have been lucky and my DD's FCPS classes have all been below 24 and typically around 20-21. She just finished 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I honestly don't get the appeal of Arlington, unless you can afford a brand-new McMansion in a place like Lyon Village. Otherwise, why spend a ton of money on a tiny, ugly house on a postage-stamp size lot for the privilege of riding an aging subway system with a lousy record of reliability?

We gave us looking for a house in Arlington-absolutely horrible places for 600K, it was totally crazy. We found a really nice neighborhood in Vienna close (o.k. you can't walk but only 5 minutes driv) to two metros.

[Anonymous]

10:37 - THIS.

"You just have that Prius aura..." ROFLMAO!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hello and please don't get irritated if I am asking questions that have alreday been answered. Please help me figure out where in NoVa I should focus my real estate search. I have two small kids and of course, schools are important. Below, I have listed the important things for my family:

- family friendly
- walkable (restaurants, grocery, park, metro)
- short commute to DC
- schools
- budget between $900K and $1.3-$1.4 mil.

Thanks so much.

Our criteria was almost exactly the same as yours and we found everything we were looking for in the Westover/Overlee section of Arlington (22205).

- family friendly - there are tons of kids in our neighborhood and it's very close to playgrounds, kid friendly restaurants, etc.
- walkable (restaurants, grocery, park, metro) - It is very walkable. We're within a 15 minute or less walk of the following: Harrison Lee shopping center (Harris Teeter, Starbucks, kid friendly restaurants), East Falls Church Metro, 3 playgrounds, Westover Branch of the Arlington County Library, Westover Shopping Center (Lost Dog Cafe, Labanese Taverna), Overlee Swim Club
- short commute to DC - My husband and I both work in DC and our commute is 20-30 minutes.
- schools - The public schools (Tuckahoe, Swanson and Yorktown) are excellent.
- budget between $900K and $1.3-$1.4 mil. - Our house is in this range and there are many in the area that are also.

[Anonymous]

Arlington without a doubt. We live near Yorktown HS and can walk to lots of shopping/restaurants and the fun of the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor isn't far away. Schools are great and Arlington offers a great variety of educational choices at the elementary school level. The commute is easy. We both work and don't know how we'd manage if we lived farther out.

[Anonymous]

Arlington has dozens of Starbucks, enough Virginia Tech graduates to fill several Orange Line trains a day, and dozens of tacky new homes on tiny lots where your dog quickly runs out of new places to pee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello and please don't get irritated if I am asking questions that have alreday been answered. Please help me figure out where in NoVa I should focus my real estate search. I have two small kids and of course, schools are important. Below, I have listed the important things for my family:

- family friendly
- walkable (restaurants, grocery, park, metro)
- short commute to DC
- schools
- budget between $900K and $1.3-$1.4 mil.

Thanks so much.

Our criteria was almost exactly the same as yours and we found everything we were looking for in the Westover/Overlee section of Arlington (22205).

- family friendly - there are tons of kids in our neighborhood and it's very close to playgrounds, kid friendly restaurants, etc.
- walkable (restaurants, grocery, park, metro) - It is very walkable. We're within a 15 minute or less walk of the following: Harrison Lee shopping center (Harris Teeter, Starbucks, kid friendly restaurants), East Falls Church Metro, 3 playgrounds, Westover Branch of the Arlington County Library, Westover Shopping Center (Lost Dog Cafe, Labanese Taverna), Overlee Swim Club
- short commute to DC - My husband and I both work in DC and our commute is 20-30 minutes.
- schools - The public schools (Tuckahoe, Swanson and Yorktown) are excellent.
- budget between $900K and $1.3-$1.4 mil. - Our house is in this range and there are many in the area that are also.

I don't know much about the schools in this area, but I Westover/Overlee is one of my favorite neighborhoods in the DC area. So convenient and so lovely with so many nice houses with great character.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know much about the schools in this area, but I Westover/Overlee is one of my favorite neighborhoods in the DC area. So convenient and so lovely with so many nice houses with great character.

Meh. We looked there. Would love to be near the Lebanese Taverna and Old Dog Cafe, but homes are mostly either huge, new cookie-cutter "Craftsmans" crammed on a small lot, or ugly brick piles from the 1950s. No amount of Arlington Kool-Aid could convince us it was worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know much about the schools in this area, but I Westover/Overlee is one of my favorite neighborhoods in the DC area. So convenient and so lovely with so many nice houses with great character.

Meh. We looked there. Would love to be near the Lebanese Taverna and Old Dog Cafe, but homes are mostly either huge, new cookie-cutter "Craftsmans" crammed on a small lot, or ugly brick piles from the 1950s. No amount of Arlington Kool-Aid could convince us it was worth it.

Most that I have seen were pretty brick colonials and cape cods from the 30's and 40's. I think they are charming. Unfortunately, Arlington was never a practical option for us as our offices are in Tysons, so we ended up in Fairfax County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meh. We looked there. Would love to be near the Lebanese Taverna and Old Dog Cafe, but homes are mostly either huge, new cookie-cutter "Craftsmans" crammed on a small lot, or ugly brick piles from the 1950s. No amount of Arlington Kool-Aid could convince us it was worth it.

It's Lost Dog Cafe, not Old Dog Cafe. It's on par with a Booeymonger's (with beer). I can't imagine wanting to go there more than two or three times a year, so who really cares whether you can walk there or not?

[Anonymous]

The Arlington versus Fairfax County (South of Old Town) debate really comes down to the personality of you and your family. If you like a competitive, over the top environment and want to always be keeping up with the Joneses, then North Arlington is your place - try to live as close as possible to Lyon Village or Yorktown High School.

If you want to relax with your family on the weekends, hit the bike trails, go to the pool that is NOT crowded, have your kid in fun preschools and camps that don't have waiting lists, check out Fairfax County. Finally, the metro is not the end all be-all - you can drive to downtown DC from Fairfax County - along the beautiful GW parkway - in about 25 minutes.