Housing prices have gone insane
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Anonymous
Lol. I live in a large and expensive waterfront home in Davidsonville/Riva, in a school district that has the same rating as McLean (South River). My kids go to private, it is absolutely possible. It depends on what people prioritize. People live in places like McLean mostly for the prestige I guess, because it’s important in our culture for people to know you’re rich just by saying the name of the town you live in or the name of the public school your kid attends. |
Anonymous
LOL, sounds like some people live in a "large and expensive waterfront home in Davidson/Riva" so they can say they "live in a large and expensive waterfront home in Davidsonville/Riva"? Proximity to jobs and good schools still matters. This house in McLean - 5.5 miles to Tysons; 8.7 miles to downtown DC Davidsonville, MD - 43 miles to Tysons; 26 to downtown DC McLean HS - #3 in VA, #236 nationally South River HS - #28 in MD, #1036 nationally. |
Anonymous
I only mentioned it to put into perspective, that it is possible to live better in the DMV at with $1.5M. Lol, being #3 in VA doesn’t carry the same weight as being #28 in MD. MD public schools are SIGNIFICANTLY more rigorous than VA schools, and their standardized tests are as well. US News & World Report doesn’t factor that into their national ratings, and nobody cares about whatever subjective metric US News uses to rate their schools. There’s been years that W schools in MoCo were unranked by them, and real estate websites don’t use US News either. They use gs. The standardized tests in VA schools are way easier because MD has higher standards. That’s like me saying that the #1 school in West Virginia is comparable to Winston Churchill. Let’s compare South River High School with a high school in MD with a similar SES as McLean, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. South River HS: Algebra test scores White: 36% Black: 28% Hispanic: 32% Asian: *no data, too few Asian students* FARMS: 25% English Language Learners: 8% [/b]English test scores[/b] White: 71% Black: 37% Hispanic: 40% Asian: *no data, not enough Asian students FARMS: 28% English Language Learner: 5% Percentage of students going to college 1 year after high school: 78% Bethesda-Chevy Chase HS: Algebra test scores White: 40% Black: 19% Hispanic: 15% FARMS: 6.4% English Language Learner: 6.8% English test scores: White: 91% Black: 51% Hispanic: 48% Asian: 71% FARMS: 34% English Language Learner: 5% Percentage of students going to college 1 year after high school: 80% Arundel HS: Algebra test scores White: 30% Black: 15% Hispanic: 17% Asian: 23.5% FARMS: 21% English Language Learner: no data English language learners White: 76% Black: 41.4% Hispanic: 64% Asian: 47% FARMS: 38% English Language Learner: 17% Percentage of students going to college 1 year after high school 78% Severna Park HS: Algebra test scores White: 59% Black: 14% Hispanic: 43% Asian: no data FARMS: 24% English Language Learners: no data English test scores White: 89% Black: 61% Hispanic: 82% Asian: 100% English Language Learner: no data Percentage of students going to college 1 year post high school: 90% Why are these schools in Anne Arundel County, where the students aren’t as high SES as BCC, outpacing BCC students on Algebra exams, going to college at the same right (or even 10% higher) than BCC students? Why are they serving their disadvantaged students that much better? If students that are lower SES than your students are able to perform as high or even better in many measures, that shows how mediocre these schools that you guys rave about really are. I didn’t even include data from HoCo schools, where one can find a decent looking expensive house, because those schools would completely but McLean and BCC to shame. I’d save you the embarrassment |
Anonymous
Some folks live in 5 million dollar houses 2 miles from downtown and less than a mile from each of the Big Three. Y’all are fighting over 17th place. |
Anonymous
The point is, the only people who pay $1M to live in a house like that in McLean/Potomac/Bethesda/Chevy Chase are only doing so for prestige. They’re more desperate to make sure people know they’re rich than they are about owning actual luxury homes. That’s why they’re paying exorbitant prices for middle-class homes constructed in the 1970s and trying to justify their lame decision to do so. I did not get a law degree from a top-tier law school just to pay $1M to live in a house that looks significantly worse than the $700k house my parents raised me in, f*ck no lol. Again, there’s similar and even significantly better schools available in the area where one can purchase a million dollar luxury home. River Hill and Centennial schools in Howard County put McLean and Bethesda schools to shame, yet I could also buy an actual mansion in those clusters for the price of this house, and my commute to DC is still pretty. And now, Frederick County is becoming an up and coming place for DC commuters. No public school would ever make that house worth that much, especially not one that is seemingly mediocre when you consider the fact that students at other schools with lower SES are close/on par or sometimes even better. All these crazy expensive places like SF/NYC/etc are seeing drastic numbers of people fleeing, and it’s because of home prices like this. People can only put up with it for so long before it becomes self-destructive. In a few years we will have people on DCUM crying about how their shitshack crashed in value and how they struggle to sell it and are underwater. People are increasingly fed up with the housing market, and people are becoming increasingly okay with commuting longer to work for a better house in a nicer area. There’s so much completion in this area that McLean doesn’t even come close to. |
Anonymous
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PP seems way too invested in defending why people live way out in the exurbs.
The house in McLean had an open house today. I drove by this afternoon and there were quite a few cars outside and people looking. I’m sure they’ll get additional offers soon, whether it’s above or slightly below $1.0M. It’s a nice neighborhood. |
Anonymous
Yeah, I’ll take things that never happened for 10 dollars |
Anonymous
It's a nice neighborhood but 1m for a quite small house right on top of its neighbors is not going to happen. I'd be surprised if it sells for more than 900K and even that seems a bit high for the size. |
Anonymous
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Cant believe that there’s people here who actually think that finding a luxury home in a nice neighborhood for that price range in the DMV with good school districts or private schools isn’t manageable. It’s only not manageable if you’re looking to live in an area where nobody within a 5 mile radius of you has a household income <$250,000 and where the percentage of people who are a race other than white or Asian is <5%. It’s absolutely manageable in certain parts of Howard and Anne Arundel County. I think some of you absolutely need to live in those types of areas as well, because there’s a huge lack of self-awareness in here and lots of people think having a $300k household income makes them “Middle-class.” Seems like you guys would benefit from seeing/living near some people that aren’t like you.
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Anonymous
You are missing the point. No one said this is most expensive house or neighborhood in the DMV. That’s why it’s listed for barely over $1.0M, not $5.0M. There’s a lot of ground between Kalorama and, say, some exurb out near Annapolis. |
Anonymous
Yeah, but who is exactly affording these houses? Going off the listing prices vs the median income of the area, there is a major mismatch. Same is true for Alexandria and Arlington as well. The median household income in those areas vs the home prices have a huge mismatch. That’s a sign that even the people living in these places aren’t affording their homes and that they’re significantly financially overburdened. That house should not be priced higher than $600k, and even that is being a little bit generous honestly. People who actually have the money for that price range (not people who can’t afford it and pay 60% of their income to live there because they’re so desperate) are not going to put their money towards something low-quality over some public school district that isn’t even that great when you measure the student body SES vs it’s academic performance. That’s a waste of their time, especially when someone who can truly afford a million dollar house can also afford a private school. The market crashing is not going to happen overnight, but it’s going to bite people back in another decade. |
Anonymous
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Not going to quote PP because it's so long, but...
The math these exurb-boosters are using is all wrong. A million dollar house plus public schools is much cheaper in the long run than a 700K house plus private schools, especially if you have multiple children. We have two - I can't imagine spending $70k per year for the next decade on private school. At least you gain equity with your million dollar house during that decade, even if local real estate prices do decline. There's also no way I'd want to live way out in Frederick County while commuting to DC, even a couple days a week. That's an hour by car if everything goes well, not including parking. I live in Vienna, and it's 30 minutes by car or an hour by metro. I'd absolutely prefer that commute over Frederick for work and social life. Contrary to what PP claimed, we certainly did not buy an expensive house just to say we live in an expensive house. We were/are shocked at DMV housing prices. But we paid a premium (well under $1M, for the record) for a large-enough home with good public schools, low crime, and an easy commute. THAT'S why we moved where we did. Finally, it's pretty weird that a PP referring to their top-tier law degree and $1.5M house is calling everyone in the suburbs arrogant. There are lots of families here like ours who aren't trying to be flashy or live large, but are grateful to have steady salaries and good schools. Your choices aren't so clearly superior to theirs. |
Anonymous
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There's a lot of ink spilled and very few making the simple point. If you work in DC, and many high income people do, then you have to live inside the Beltway to have a reasonable commute. There's not much land inside the Beltway, and accordingly, houses are expensive.
As to top law school dbag, he seems to miss three points. His parents $700K house costs less than a small house inside the beltway because his parents live in a less desirable area (must have not taken any basic econ during his elite education). He also tries to correlate household income data with housing prices to come to a conclusion that everyone is cash strapped. He must not realize that there are lots of high density apartments and pockets of poverty in these areas that drag down the household incomes. I'm guessing he also missed that class where you learn that conventional mortgages limit DTI, and jumbos have far higher underwriting standards. Finally, he's the only top law school grad I know of that spent all the time 'succeeding' to then have a super long commute. |
Anonymous
| Wow. This is turning into a "make more popcorn" thread. I moved to Frederick because I actually can't afford a million follar house, or even a half a million, and my kid goes to a school pyramid where the average rating is 6.5 (gasp!). My $300k house is smaller and more falling apart than the $150k house my parents raised me in! I must be beyond miserable. |
Anonymous
What you’re saying goes along with what I’m saying. Vienna isn’t McLean, and the home prices there are significantly less over-priced. I’m looking at the listings right now, and there’s a lot of houses there for the price range of this house that I’d actually pay for. Vienna is far more similar to Clarksville and Ellicott City, which is an area I was saying that one can get a decent house in with good schools. People are saying location and schools are pushing these prices, but schools and location are only worth SO much (especially McLean, which is not even that great of a school), and this house is priced far beyond that worth, especially when you consider that a lot of outer suburbs have access to public transportation that goes to DC anyways. There’s a MARC right near me in Odenton, and there’s a public bus right here in Davidsonville that goes into DC. My commute from this area is very doable, so I’m not paying $1.5M for a middle-class home in an overcrowded area that is highly congested, hell no. When it comes to the schools, well, many people are willing to pay for private, and there’s also far better public schools in some of the outer suburbs as well. I also still live in a very good public school pyramid relative to the school that this house is zoned for, and South River is among the best in the state, and our local schools are highly regarded. I’m actually considering sending my oldest to South River High School when she gets to that level, especially because they have a very good STEM program. SRHS was also the first school in MD to be named a Maryland Blue Ribbon School. The main reason I was sending my kids to private was actually because the private schools in the area are more ethnically diverse than our local public schools, which are very, very white. We are also white, but we wanted our kids to be exposed to more diversity. The socio-economic diversity at the public schools here are very good though. It’s pretty much evenly split between very affluent kids, middle-class kids, and upper-middle-class kids. The FARMS percentage is low, but higher than Bethesda/McLean/Potomac/etc schools. I am confident that my kids would get a decent education at these schools and that they will still attend top colleges. Some of these schools that have a rave they absolutely do not deserve at all. Severna Park High School students perform significantly better than Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School students do, and the percentage of SPHS grads going to college is 10% higher than the percentage of BCC grads going to college, yet, SPHS students are on average not as affluent as BCC students. Severna Park students are basically on par with Whitman/WJ/Churchill students, and it’s very impressive considering the difference in SES between the student bodies at the two schools. I’d send my kids to Severna Park before I’d send them to McLean or B-CC, because those schools are overhyped and despite having very affluent student bodies, they’re not performing much higher than other schools that have lower SES and in some cases, they’re worse. They are also serving their disadvantaged students very poorly relative to these other schools.. I can buy a beautiful house in the Severna Park or Broadneck district for $1.5-$2M and be within good distance from DC/transportation to it, and I’d have Downtown Annapolis and Baltimore nearby for entertainment. I can still drive to DC for weekend entertainment from these areas as well. This is not even mentioning the Howard County schools, which are the best in the state and country and have a very good commute to DC. I could get a $1.5M luxury house in Clarksville easily. Also, DC is not the only job market in the region. There’s Baltimore, Fort Meade, and even Annapolis to a lesser degree. AA and Howard County provide better a commuting distance to all these places, whereas the DC inner burbs suck for commuting to all the other places besides DC and AA/Howard County are more reasonably priced, when they are probably more valuable than the inner burbs in terms of location; they offer good schools AND a decent commute to all the job hubs in the region, not just DC. With many couples having one spouse who works in the DC metro area and the other in the Baltimore or Fort Meade region, having a good commuting distance from all the job hubs is becoming more important, rather than being extremely close to just one of them but far far away from the rest. It’s not a bargain to find good schools within a reasonable commute from DC at a good price point at all. What these posters actually mean is that it is hard to find somewhere with virtually no poor people, a very small and almost non-existent middle/upper-middle-class, and no race other than Asian or white with “good” schools and good commute to DC, they’re just too afraid to say it. “Nice” neighbors probably just translates to “people who work in some prestigious job and make no less than $250,000 combined a year.” I’m not stupid, I know how it works here. Nobody’s home has to be super flashy with golden door handles and chandeliers, but f I’m paying for a $1.5M house, I’m definitely not buying one that was intended for a price range and income bracket that is much lower. I pay for quality, and most people who can afford a house that expensive are thinking the same way. The amount of people willing to put up with these stupid prices is becoming less and less over time, especially considering that most of the people living in these areas can’t afford their own homes, going by home values vs median incomes of these areas. These prices are absolutely outrageous and are not justifiable in any way. |