DC Expensive Real Estate causing Millennials to leave for the suburbs

[Anonymous]

I do not understand the need at "DC' UrbanMom to bash DC. If you love the Burbs, God Bless You! You should live there. I am not mad at you for your choice. But, please I LOVE living in DC so you should not down my choice to do so! That really seems to be a problem on this forum.

In my neighborhood, live in Bloomingdale BTW, I am NOT afraid of getting shot at, stabbed or whatever negative thing people say about living in DC EOP.

I have neighbors with kids and some without. My neighbor raised all three kids who all went to DCPS. One graduated from Stanford, the other graduated from Morehouse and got a MA from Princeton and the last one is now at Pratt. So, they did not become criminals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do not understand the need at "DC' UrbanMom to bash DC. If you love the Burbs, God Bless You! You should live there. I am not mad at you for your choice. But, please I LOVE living in DC so you should not down my choice to do so! That really seems to be a problem on this forum.

In my neighborhood, live in Bloomingdale BTW, I am NOT afraid of getting shot at, stabbed or whatever negative thing people say about living in DC EOP.

I have neighbors with kids and some without. My neighbor raised all three kids who all went to DCPS. One graduated from Stanford, the other graduated from Morehouse and got a MA from Princeton and the last one is now at Pratt. So, they did not become criminals.

I'm not at your choice either. I've lived in DC, and right now there is a young DC person paying for my mortgage on the condo. But it doesn't equal to bashing for people to point out the insane pricing, the school anxiety and the poor reach of public transit. These are facts, not emotions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do not understand the need at "DC' UrbanMom to bash DC. If you love the Burbs, God Bless You! You should live there. I am not mad at you for your choice. But, please I LOVE living in DC so you should not down my choice to do so! That really seems to be a problem on this forum.

In my neighborhood, live in Bloomingdale BTW, I am NOT afraid of getting shot at, stabbed or whatever negative thing people say about living in DC EOP.

I have neighbors with kids and some without. My neighbor raised all three kids who all went to DCPS. One graduated from Stanford, the other graduated from Morehouse and got a MA from Princeton and the last one is now at Pratt. So, they did not become criminals.

Actually if you go back to the start of this thread, it was about millennials wanting to stay but getting priced out of DC.....so getting back to that thread, the cheapest 3BR I see in Bloomingdale at the moment is $550k. Tough for a lot of families when you consider the uncertainty with the charter school lottery (totally not familiar with the neighborhood schools there, sounds like they worked for your friends though!).

[Anonymous]

When I was young I left DC because the income taxes, with no mortgage and no kids, were too high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also have known plenty who have sent their kids to DC public schools and they did not turn out poorly

As well as folks who sent their kids to BCC HS and they turned out no better than DCPS kids.

Parenting also has a lot to do with it! Some prefer the schools to parent while they do other things.

Good point. My kid has a friend who graduated from BCC who is a huge pothead and living off of mommy and daddy. My kid is drug and alcohol free and working hard and spent most of her school career in DCPS.

How often do you test her for doping?

Of her own volition, she attends 12 step meetings 6 days a week. I'm utterly confident she is not using. Oh and by the way, when she was using, she got her substances from well-to-do private school and BCC white kids, not the kids she knew in DCPS.

[Anonymous]

If you live in barnaby woods or surrounding without investigating Maryland and Virginia, you are an idiot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also have known plenty who have sent their kids to DC public schools and they did not turn out poorly

As well as folks who sent their kids to BCC HS and they turned out no better than DCPS kids.

Parenting also has a lot to do with it! Some prefer the schools to parent while they do other things.

Good point. My kid has a friend who graduated from BCC who is a huge pothead and living off of mommy and daddy. My kid is drug and alcohol free and working hard and spent most of her school career in DCPS.

Actually, "can my kid turn out well in DCPS" is not the question. The real question is "could my kid have done better in FX/MOCO/ARL schools." You aren't comparing average or anecdotal outcomes. You're looking, or you should be, for the best educational environment for your specific child, not looking to clear some (ridiculously low) bar like absence of substance abuse.

Hey, pp used the expression "turned no better than." Sorry if being able to function well and attend a top college is setting the bar ridiculously low. And while it's all speculation there's no reason to believe that my kid would have done better in FX/MOCO/ARL schools. Achievement tends to correlate with socioeconomic status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every time I hear someone talking about how they "can't afford anything" in DC it makes me wonder if they've only looked on U Street, in Tenleytown, Cleveland Park, etc. Sure there are lots of houses for sale in DC in that range, but there are houses in nice parts of NE (not talking about H Street) for under $300k, and friends have bought in Shaw for under $450k. It's not nothing, and yeah, you're still taking the charter school gamble but houses in the burbs aren't going for much less. If you really want to live in the city, you probably can. If you just want to live in the super hip area, then good luck.

What nice parts of NE?

I own a condo near H St and wouldn't dream of raising my son there.

What property did your friends buy in Shaw for 450K?

I don't think anyone argues that if you really want to live in the city, you can; it's just that the way you will live without a huge budget (cramped place, marginal neighborhood, school anxiety) is not appealing.

Again, not H street. Brookland, Riggs Park, parts of Michigan Park, Takoma (DC, not Takoma Park, MD). All of which have nice houses at reasonable prices close to the metro.

I hear you on the NE neighborhoods, but first, discussions are underway whether Riggs Park and Takoma are in fact nice. And secondly, most of these neighborhoods are completely suburban in nature. So why deal with suburban dreariness AND urban problems rolled into one property?

I believe the point that was trying to be made was that there are indeed affordable nice neighborhoods in DC. It is irritating to hear the city isn't affordable when it is really a matter of people not wanting to compromise on what they can afford vs. what they want.

In that case, why fault someone for choosing to live in (Falls Church/Silver Spring/Bowie) instead of a part of DC with no urban amenities and lots of problems?

There's no faulting anyone for living where they like. And just because a DC neighborhood might not be well known doesn't mean it doesn't have amenities and has lots of problems. It's more a response to the "Wah! I can't live in DC!" When, if you really want that, you can. Maybe you just can't live in the heart of Columbia Heights.

Agreed. And btw we should add that Columbia Heights has lots of problems! People just decide they're willing to live with them in order to get the other things Columbia Heights offers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, I'll bite. I know this commute well. I live in Brookland/Woodridge, about .75 miles from the Brookland metro station. I can get to Foggy Bottom by transit in about 30. My commute to my office in Georgetown, door to door, via transit is about 45 minutes and driving it's 30 minutes.

If you live less than a mile from a metro station, you are not a part of this discussion. Honestly. What percentage of DC territory do you think is located within .75 of a metro station? This discussion is about DC neighborhoods that are well removed from the public transit options.

Actually a working knowledge of DC geography would be helpful here - many of the "out there" neighborhoods are located within a mile or less of the metro. Brookland, Michigan Park, Riggs Park, Takoma, etc...

No doubt, many are. But many more aren't.

Now I am curious. Which ones?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

No it wasn't. G'town, Spring Valley, Kent, yes. But AU Park was for white-collar government workers, nothing super fancy. East of 16th St was never an elite anything.

Yeah seriously. AU Park and CCDC (especially areas that fed into Janney, Lafayette, and Murch) used to be very much white collar federal workers. I grew up in CCDC and had friends who went to Janney and Murch from ballet class. It used to be the area where people lived who were college educated, but not super high earners. Not lobbyists, Big Law, finance people, etc. but just a federal attorney and his SAH wife, or a couple of journalists, or an NIH worker and someone who worked at a non-profit. Those people obviously worked to make their schools as good as possible and wanted good educations for their children (it was always an educated area), but it wasn't super fancy. It's amazing how much that area has changed since I grew up.

Yeah, lots of couples that are 50+ years old in our Lafayette neighborhood are government/non-profit types. All the parents under 40 or so tend to have a at least one parent at Big Law, a defense contractor, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No it wasn't. G'town, Spring Valley, Kent, yes. But AU Park was for white-collar government workers, nothing super fancy. East of 16th St was never an elite anything.

Yeah seriously. AU Park and CCDC (especially areas that fed into Janney, Lafayette, and Murch) used to be very much white collar federal workers. I grew up in CCDC and had friends who went to Janney and Murch from ballet class. It used to be the area where people lived who were college educated, but not super high earners. Not lobbyists, Big Law, finance people, etc. but just a federal attorney and his SAH wife, or a couple of journalists, or an NIH worker and someone who worked at a non-profit. Those people obviously worked to make their schools as good as possible and wanted good educations for their children (it was always an educated area), but it wasn't super fancy. It's amazing how much that area has changed since I grew up.

Yeah, lots of couples that are 50+ years old in our Lafayette neighborhood are government/non-profit types. All the parents under 40 or so tend to have a at least one parent at Big Law, a defense contractor, etc.

Big Law and government contractors are both much larger than they were a generation ago. You could just as easily say the same things about neighborhoods in Arlington, Bethesda and McLean as you've noted about your NW neighborhood. The only difference is that there's slightly less navel-gazing in those areas, though Arlington comes fairly close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, I'll bite. I know this commute well. I live in Brookland/Woodridge, about .75 miles from the Brookland metro station. I can get to Foggy Bottom by transit in about 30. My commute to my office in Georgetown, door to door, via transit is about 45 minutes and driving it's 30 minutes.

If you live less than a mile from a metro station, you are not a part of this discussion. Honestly. What percentage of DC territory do you think is located within .75 of a metro station? This discussion is about DC neighborhoods that are well removed from the public transit options.

Actually a working knowledge of DC geography would be helpful here - many of the "out there" neighborhoods are located within a mile or less of the metro. Brookland, Michigan Park, Riggs Park, Takoma, etc...

No doubt, many are. But many more aren't.

Now I am curious. Which ones?

Try this- easy to create a 1 mile buffer around metro stations. I'd have saved out a pdf for display but couldn't figure out how.
http://blog.dc.esri.com/2010/12/10/the-5th-day-of-analytics-%E2%80%93-buffer/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No it wasn't. G'town, Spring Valley, Kent, yes. But AU Park was for white-collar government workers, nothing super fancy. East of 16th St was never an elite anything.

Yeah seriously. AU Park and CCDC (especially areas that fed into Janney, Lafayette, and Murch) used to be very much white collar federal workers. I grew up in CCDC and had friends who went to Janney and Murch from ballet class. It used to be the area where people lived who were college educated, but not super high earners. Not lobbyists, Big Law, finance people, etc. but just a federal attorney and his SAH wife, or a couple of journalists, or an NIH worker and someone who worked at a non-profit. Those people obviously worked to make their schools as good as possible and wanted good educations for their children (it was always an educated area), but it wasn't super fancy. It's amazing how much that area has changed since I grew up.

Yeah, lots of couples that are 50+ years old in our Lafayette neighborhood are government/non-profit types. All the parents under 40 or so tend to have a at least one parent at Big Law, a defense contractor, etc.

Big Law and government contractors are both much larger than they were a generation ago. You could just as easily say the same things about neighborhoods in Arlington, Bethesda and McLean as you've noted about your NW neighborhood. The only difference is that there's slightly less navel-gazing in those areas, though Arlington comes fairly close.

What is navel grazing?

Maybe we should start a new thread about millennials being priced out of NoVA!

But it's true, a government/non-profit job doesn't buy you into the same neighborhoods as 20 years ago.

[Anonymous]

That's true about there being more Big Law lawyers and defense contractors than 20 years ago...but it used to be that Bethesda was more upscale than living in NW DC. People who got priced out of Bethesda would move within the city limits (even if it was, like, literally the other side of the street was Maryland), and that meant "city" suburban neighborhoods like CCDC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Posted this on a PG thread earlier - prices are really getting out of whack in [b]DC proper[b], even in deep NE.

This one in NE DC for $649 -
http://www.homesnap.com/DC/Washington/3002-Franklin-Street-NE

Or this one for $630 -
http://www.homesnap.com/DC/Washington/3924-18th-Street-NE

Versus Hyattsville for $399 -
http://www.homesnap.com/MD/Hyattsville/5001-41st-Place

Or Mt Rainier for $375 -
http://www.homesnap.com/MD/Mount-Rainier/3008-Bunker-Hill-Road

"DC Proper" -- a curious way of saying "Washington." Like the folks who years ago tried to say "school resource center" when a perfectly good and simple word, "library" worked just fine."

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