Moco - no appreciation in the last 10 years

[Anonymous]

I just sold my Silver Spring house for $800k that I purchase for $500k in 2003. No additions added but redid the kitchen. The one bathroom was in crappy shape. I call that pretty good appreciation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It always follows the school system. MCPS schools have declined significantly last 10 years or so. You can thank your county politicians.

Fairfax resident here, so no dog in this fight. I could be wrong, but that seems like a huge overstatement. We have tons of friends in MoCo, and they pretty much all sing the praises of their neighborhood elementary schools. And even if all those "W" schools have dropped, they're still some of the best high schools in the whole area. We have school issues in FCPS, and there were issues when we lived in APS too. Even if folks weren't as happy with MCPS, where exactly would they move to? Especially in MD, where you don't have nearly as many choices if you want to keep the commute under an hour.

Hmmm, my sister lives in Bethesda and constantly tells me how disappointed she has become with the number of children in her neighborhood that now attend privates. Private school enrollment is definitely up among MCPS parents, just check all the threads on this board in the last couple of weeks discussing, schools, open houses, admissions, etc.

Yup, that's why so many MCPS schools in Bethesda are overcrowded.

Wait, what?

[Anonymous]

I just sold my Silver Spring house for $800k that I purchase for $500k in 2003. No additions added but redid the kitchen. The one bathroom was in crappy shape. I call that pretty good appreciation.

That's 2003. If you had bought in 2006, you would have paid 850K for the house and 800K now, losing 50K equity plus transaction/realtor costs and the cost of the new kitchen. This is what everyone is pointing out. MOCO has not recovered to the height of the market in 2008. Honestly, you are lucky to have gotten 800K for your SS house. We looked at a house in DTSS in 2004 -new build, great location for 825K it sold two years ago for 700K.

VA and DC have surpassed 2008 and seem to keep going. This is really bad for MOCO because the county has many more residents reaching retirement age who will need to sell at some point so inventory will be rising as prices are stagnating and then falling. More sellers and fewer buyers means lower prices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It always follows the school system. MCPS schools have declined significantly last 10 years or so. You can thank your county politicians.

Fairfax resident here, so no dog in this fight. I could be wrong, but that seems like a huge overstatement. We have tons of friends in MoCo, and they pretty much all sing the praises of their neighborhood elementary schools. And even if all those "W" schools have dropped, they're still some of the best high schools in the whole area. We have school issues in FCPS, and there were issues when we lived in APS too. Even if folks weren't as happy with MCPS, where exactly would they move to? Especially in MD, where you don't have nearly as many choices if you want to keep the commute under an hour.

Hmmm, my sister lives in Bethesda and constantly tells me how disappointed she has become with the number of children in her neighborhood that now attend privates. Private school enrollment is definitely up among MCPS parents, just check all the threads on this board in the last couple of weeks discussing, schools, open houses, admissions, etc.

Yup, that's why so many MCPS schools in Bethesda are overcrowded.

Wait, what?

Which is why so MANY of my sister's neighbors are now in private, as evidenced during the complaints about overcrowding and options on this board. You can keep living in denial, but things have changed, maybe not for your version of a quality education, but for many others it has, whether you except it or not. Doesn't change the fact that when someone lives in a close in Bethesda neighborhood and every child on her block, as well as the two surrounding blocks all of a sudden are in private, that something is up. One neighbor on her street particularly shocked all of us as she was the "private schools are evil" person forever and now her two kids are at Bullis. WTH? She drives 40 mins away every morning and her public school is amazing? I think not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I just sold my Silver Spring house for $800k that I purchase for $500k in 2003. No additions added but redid the kitchen. The one bathroom was in crappy shape. I call that pretty good appreciation.

That's 2003. If you had bought in 2006, you would have paid 850K for the house and 800K now, losing 50K equity plus transaction/realtor costs and the cost of the new kitchen. This is what everyone is pointing out. MOCO has not recovered to the height of the market in 2008. Honestly, you are lucky to have gotten 800K for your SS house. We looked at a house in DTSS in 2004 -new build, great location for 825K it sold two years ago for 700K.

VA and DC have surpassed 2008 and seem to keep going. This is really bad for MOCO because the county has many more residents reaching retirement age who will need to sell at some point so inventory will be rising as prices are stagnating and then falling. More sellers and fewer buyers means lower prices.

This.

[Anonymous]

Moco is reaping the results of decades of increasingly unhinged and incompetent governance. That alone might not make it undesirable, but VA is too close. And sane government, a business friendly atmosphere, and loads of jobs have just put the discrepancies into overdrive. Who would buy in Moco if they have the option to buy in Arlington or close-in FFX?

We’ll see if VA maintains its lead in light of the election.

[Anonymous]

Eh, MD has different foreclosure laws than VA. It took underwater homes a long time to work through the courts, some of the great recession foreclosures in my neighborhood just finished selling this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eh, MD has different foreclosure laws than VA. It took underwater homes a long time to work through the courts, some of the great recession foreclosures in my neighborhood just finished selling this year.

MD is uniquely inefficient, costly, and slow? Shocking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Moco is reaping the results of decades of increasingly unhinged and incompetent governance. That alone might not make it undesirable, but VA is too close. And sane government, a business friendly atmosphere, and loads of jobs have just put the discrepancies into overdrive. Who would buy in Moco if they have the option to buy in Arlington or close-in FFX?

We’ll see if VA maintains its lead in light of the election.

Every decision isn’t all about money. I’m sure I’d see a better ROI if I bought a place in Houston in 2008, but that doesn’t mean I’d want to live there. There are large swaths of MoCo that are just nicer than Arlington and close-in Fairfax. There are no neighborhoods in either of those places that are as nice as Chevy Chase or Battery Park, which is why a place like Chevy Chase has always been nice, even in the 1930s when Arlington and Fairfax were barely populated outposts. Ask someone in San Francisco or London to name a nice neighborhood in the DC area. They’ll probably name Chevy Chase or Georgetown...not anywhere in Fairfax or Arlington. There’s a reason for that. It’s the same reason the most prestigious private schools and country clubs are in close-in MoCo and NW DC, not Arlington and Fairfax. Everything west of Rock Creek Park and south of White Flint in DC and MD is just nicer looking - the architecture, the parks, the landscape - than any similar sized swath of land in Fairfax and Arlington. It’s just objectively a nicer place to live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a homeowner in Bethesda, i was looking through the data and was shocked at the fact that RE prices in this area are basically flat since 2008-2009 and even lower than the peak in 2005-2006. It looks like it’s not even keeping up with inflation. Meanwhile prices in Arlington and Fairfax have gone up by 40-50% over the same period. We are moderately well off but not rich by any means but this adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars of home equity. I never expected the gap to be so large. We love our neighborhood and our commute to DC is pleasant but I can’t help but being slightly jealous.

There has been appreciation in the last five to six years because prices dropped from the peak. What you’re complaining about is that prices haven’t exceeded the bubble prices. That would not be a particularly good thing if they did.

We are way past bubble prices in NOVA, and there's no sign of letting up. I am surprised to hear that prices are flat in Bethesda. That doesn't seem true to me.

Which means you’ll have another massive crash when the next recession hits. NOVA was devastated in the last one.

"Devestated"? Lol!

I purchased my NoVA home at the peak of the bubble, held onto it as a rental because of it and it is now well over what I paid in 2005. That's not devastated.

My current home I purchased in 1999 much further put than my rental for 475k. I'm in a development, and my neighbor just sold hers for 725k.

Between my inside the beltway nova home and my outside the beltway home, excluding what I've paid down, I'm sitting on 600k in equity

[Anonymous]

MCPS and the county will continue to decline because there are no large companies coming to the county. Clark Kendall wrote an article about this - something like 10 companies came to the county between 2009-2019. DC has 7,500 in that time frame. Companies - not parents - put pressure on politicians to improve the schools with the threat they will leave because the schools are not offering up good workers. It was the business community that made Massachusetts number 1 for 30 years with the 1993 Education Reform Act. Sorry (and I am a 25 year county resident but this place needs someone who can attract more than dump trucks to the county)

[Anonymous]

Painting an entire county broad-brush is really odd. Do you mean to tell me that Olney is the same as Bethesda is the same as Clarksburg? Do you mean that townhouses or condos on the red line are the same as farms out in Darnestown?

There has been appreciation, but the types of housing that are appreciating most are not the same as 20 or 30 years ago. People are a little less interested in fixing up older homes and more interested in newer homes, closer to the amenities they prefer (subway, dining, schools, whatever). Why do you think all of the land along 270 that used to be farms from Gaithersburg to Frederick is now filled in? People were interested in new houses or condos or townhouses, and they were willing to pay for new build and spend their money that way with perhaps a longer commute than buy an older home closer in.

As long as Washington DC is near Maryland, it will have somewhat of a floor for real estate, but I do think people are wising up to the better value in areas further around the beltway, from Takoma Park around to parts of PG county.

All that being said, I do think the announcement of American Legion bridge improvements today will help southern Montgomery County a bit in the future (and help Nova too).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moco is reaping the results of decades of increasingly unhinged and incompetent governance. That alone might not make it undesirable, but VA is too close. And sane government, a business friendly atmosphere, and loads of jobs have just put the discrepancies into overdrive. Who would buy in Moco if they have the option to buy in Arlington or close-in FFX?

We’ll see if VA maintains its lead in light of the election.

Every decision isn’t all about money. I’m sure I’d see a better ROI if I bought a place in Houston in 2008, but that doesn’t mean I’d want to live there. There are large swaths of MoCo that are just nicer than Arlington and close-in Fairfax. There are no neighborhoods in either of those places that are as nice as Chevy Chase or Battery Park, which is why a place like Chevy Chase has always been nice, even in the 1930s when Arlington and Fairfax were barely populated outposts. Ask someone in San Francisco or London to name a nice neighborhood in the DC area. They’ll probably name Chevy Chase or Georgetown...not anywhere in Fairfax or Arlington. There’s a reason for that. It’s the same reason the most prestigious private schools and country clubs are in close-in MoCo and NW DC, not Arlington and Fairfax. Everything west of Rock Creek Park and south of White Flint in DC and MD is just nicer looking - the architecture, the parks, the landscape - than any similar sized swath of land in Fairfax and Arlington. It’s just objectively a nicer place to live.

Using Houston as an example doesn’t make a lot of sense. We are saying, “buy 30 minutes away in NoVa,” not “scour the country and cherrypick a city somewhere in a different region that has seen more appreciation than MoCo.” Poor analogy.

I am also not sure why you are talking about the 1930s. MoCo might have been nicer or more prosperous than NoVa in the ‘30’s, but that’s decades before I was born so...

Also, this idea that MoCo has nicer landscaping, neighborhoods, etc? The market disagrees with you based on the price of real estate and inflow/outflow trends. Sorry, TerpBoy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moco is reaping the results of decades of increasingly unhinged and incompetent governance. That alone might not make it undesirable, but VA is too close. And sane government, a business friendly atmosphere, and loads of jobs have just put the discrepancies into overdrive. Who would buy in Moco if they have the option to buy in Arlington or close-in FFX?

We’ll see if VA maintains its lead in light of the election.

Every decision isn’t all about money. I’m sure I’d see a better ROI if I bought a place in Houston in 2008, but that doesn’t mean I’d want to live there. There are large swaths of MoCo that are just nicer than Arlington and close-in Fairfax. There are no neighborhoods in either of those places that are as nice as Chevy Chase or Battery Park, which is why a place like Chevy Chase has always been nice, even in the 1930s when Arlington and Fairfax were barely populated outposts. Ask someone in San Francisco or London to name a nice neighborhood in the DC area. They’ll probably name Chevy Chase or Georgetown...not anywhere in Fairfax or Arlington. There’s a reason for that. It’s the same reason the most prestigious private schools and country clubs are in close-in MoCo and NW DC, not Arlington and Fairfax. Everything west of Rock Creek Park and south of White Flint in DC and MD is just nicer looking - the architecture, the parks, the landscape - than any similar sized swath of land in Fairfax and Arlington. It’s just objectively a nicer place to live.

Using Houston as an example doesn’t make a lot of sense. We are saying, “buy 30 minutes away in NoVa,” not “scour the country and cherrypick a city somewhere in a different region that has seen more appreciation than MoCo.” Poor analogy.

I am also not sure why you are talking about the 1930s. MoCo might have been nicer or more prosperous than NoVa in the ‘30’s, but that’s decades before I was born so...

Also, this idea that MoCo has nicer landscaping, neighborhoods, etc? The market disagrees with you based on the price of real estate and inflow/outflow trends. Sorry, TerpBoy.

Christina Aguilera outsells Aretha Franklin. Doesn't mean she's a "better" singer or artist. Just because something is more expensive doesn't mean it has more aesthetic value or is "nicer."

They don't make houses like this in VA, especially a few miles from the DC border. If they do, show me.

https://www.redfin.com/MD/Chevy-Chase/6404-Garnett-Dr-20815/home/10650321

[Anonymous]

MoCo average and median home prices are at all time highs.