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

[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.

Oh for gd's sake, that's ridiculous

[Anonymous]

I'd cross the border to CC MD. Not the Village but the less pricey parts (also near the District) like Rock Creek Forest or Rollingwood The SFH architecture and streetscape aren't dramatically different from the standard upper NW streets (which are just a few blocks away), the BCC school district is vastly better, the residents are largely similar in mind-set, and the CC MD prices (at the lower levels) are actually inexplicably lower than for-like prices in Upper NW. And frankly those communities aren't markedly less "walkable" than much of Upper Northwest (try walking to the metro from Barnaby Woods, or from over by Westmoreland Circle).

I'm assuming that as you state, you're looking for a comfortable SFH in a close-in, safe neighborhood with good schools. If you're fixated on 20015 and 20016 because you think that zip code confers some ineffable quality on its residents that individuals living across the street in other zip codes or jurisdictions can never possess, well, good luck to you.

Sometimes I think Freud had DCUM in mind when he wrote about the narcissism of small differences...

[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.

Op, you are been dramatic too.

It is disappointing, but instead of saying it’s all been a waste, maybe revisit your goal. If you are ready to spend $1.5 in DC today on a house that doesn’t exist, you can have a house in Silver Spring or Arlington today that DOES exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Why move in-bounds if you lotteried into a feeder? Isn't that the entire point of the lottery? And I'm not saying J-R is perfect, but it's certainly not any worse than Takoma Park and Silver Spring schools. Sounds like OP isn't considering Bethesda or McLean, so apples to apples, her "upper NW" and MCPS options (Blair, Einstein) are going to be very similar.

Because the commute is extremely disruptive for marginal educational benefit (in our case).

Where are you looking to move though? I'm assuming not Takoma Park if you're looking for more than a marginal benefit in the move...

I don't have answers to your questions about my specific case because it is still theoretical for us. My point for OP was just that it maybe shouldn't be an "all eggs in one basket" consideration. We "won the lottery" and it has been an underwhelming experience that we are not in a hurry to stretch ourselves to pay for.

I hear you, but we’re also in Petworth and know plenty of families that have moved to MCPS. I can’t tell more than a marginal difference between our DCPS and their MCPS elementary. I think it says more about the fact that the Petworth DCPS schools really aren’t all that bad than that the JR feeders and MCPS elementaries are underwhelming. Now safety concerns and middle school are totally different considerations, but my middle school couldn’t your kids just take the Deal bus anyways? Unless you’re at Hyde Addison and will be doing that cross-town commute forever. Point is that, safety concerns aside, I’m seeing our friends in MCPS and not super convinced that moving to MOCO wouldn’t be underwhelming in its own right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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)

I grew up in DC (which I love, but could not afford a SFH in) and now live in MoCo. I don't understand living in CCDC if it's an economic stretch. Just cross the line a few blocks or a mile or so and you can live in MoCo and get slightly better public schools and instate tuition. Some people are hell bent on living IN DC but then wind up living in a pretty suburban feeling area with not as good schools and no instate college preference.

OP, 1.1 million could buy a brand new build, nice big house, in Oakland Terrace neighborhood of Silver Spring. 500-600k could buy a 1950s cape cod in Oakland Terrace (in Silver Spring, sort of the eastern part of Kensington, but not Town of Kensington). Nice bilingual elementary school school that is part of the DCC so you have school choice in HS (zoned for Einsten which isnt a W school but has a nice IB program). 1.5 could buy a nice new build a mile or two west of there in Kensington zoned for WJ. 800k could buy a 1950s cape cod type house in that WJ part of Kensington.

If you like cute old housing, check out the historic part of the Town of Kensington. There are several blocks that look like Cleveland Park and those are zoned for either BCC or WJ, I think. You'd probably need well over a million to buy those old houses.

I work remotely. I would not want to make the commute into DC every single day. But people do it. There is a MARC station that goes to Union Station in DC.

[Anonymous]

OP, you can get a nice rowhouse in Glover Park for $1.5 million.

[Anonymous]

Come to Takoma Park. It's great. You could get a place (if one comes on the market) close to the Metro for that money, with plenty of yard and some historic charm, for what that's worth. It won't feel appreciably different than it does in CCDC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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-Highland-Dr-20910/home/11078998
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Silver-Spring/1005-Highland-Dr-20910/home/11078898

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

Sorry, but for $1.275, I'll take a home in Bethesda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can get a house in Bethesda for as little as 800K. It won't be fancy, though.

These houses all sold for < $1.5M very recently and look nice to me. While not "walkable" to downtown Bethesda, they are inside the beltway and have redline stops nearby.


$975,000 https://www.redfin.com/MD/Bethesda/9411-Elsmere-Ct-20814/home/10655938

$1.075M https://www.redfin.com/MD/Bethesda/9517-Kingsley-Ave-20814/home/10656181

$1.12M https://www.redfin.com/MD/Bethesda/5018-Alta-Vista-Rd-20814/home/10672319

$1.125 https://www.redfin.com/MD/Bethesda/9011-Hempstead-Ave-20817/home/10661334

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Op, you are been dramatic too.

It is disappointing, but instead of saying it’s all been a waste, maybe revisit your goal. If you are ready to spend $1.5 in DC today on a house that doesn’t exist, you can have a house in Silver Spring or Arlington today that DOES exist.

Inventory is even tighter in Arlington. I just did a search in all 8 zip codes for Arlington county for home listing ranging in prices between 1.0mil - 1.5mil only 19 homes came up, including townhouses and condos. Arlington counties population is around 240K

[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.

This. Things changed, and not in a good way, during the pandemic. The quality is not as good as it was for my older kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Op, you are been dramatic too.

It is disappointing, but instead of saying it’s all been a waste, maybe revisit your goal. If you are ready to spend $1.5 in DC today on a house that doesn’t exist, you can have a house in Silver Spring or Arlington today that DOES exist.

Inventory is even tighter in Arlington. I just did a search in all 8 zip codes for Arlington county for home listing ranging in prices between 1.0mil - 1.5mil only 19 homes came up, including townhouses and condos. Arlington counties population is around 240K

I did the same search for Bethesda and only 8 homes came up in OP’s price range. Bethesda’s current population is 70K. Arlington’s current population is 247K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This. Things changed, and not in a good way, during the pandemic. The quality is not as good as it was for my older kids.

Things changed for every school districts. Some teachers left the teaching profession all together.

[Anonymous]

I second the poster asking if you’re sure you will never need $ for private school. Stretching for Deal and Wilson would be a hard sell for me when suburban options exist.

[Anonymous]

The newly elected ANC commissioners in upper NW are hellbent on turning it into Petworth. Stay where you are or move to NOVA.