Reply to Columbia MD?

Forum Index » Real Estate

Reply to "Columbia MD?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]A few things about Columbia:

1. Columbia schools aren't the best schools in Howard County. On the whole they're not as "good" as the rest of HoCo schools. There are variations within Columbia, of course (a small part of Columbia feeds into River Hill HS and that's one of the best in the county). And even the "worst" schools in Columbia are leagues better than, say, Baltimore schools and hardly bad by any stretch of the imagination, but that's still the general reputation.

2. Because Columbia was built around a village model, with each village having a mixture of SFH, townhouses and apartments, Columbia has a higher concentration of Section 8 housing than elsewhere in the county. Some villages have more than others (practically none in River Hill, but lots in Long Reach). See how this affects the reputation of local schools. And real estate in the county is driven first and foremost by schools.

3. Columbia is ageing rapidly. The oldest villages were first built in the late 1960s and most of Columbia in the 1970s-1980s. Housing tend to be smaller than elsewhere in the county, and they were never that well built to begin with. Dated, needing some repairs, that's typical of Columbia for you.

Regarding housing appreciation, Howard is far enough from DC that housing appreciation tends to follow the Baltimore market pattern, and selling today what you paid for 10-15 years ago is still the norm in many areas. There are always the variations and exceptions, of course. I would not unduly worry about this, it's highly unlikely Howard will see declining values. At the peak of the boom people were paying top dollar for anything, anywhere, but in today's market they can afford to be choosier, which is why you saw "stagnant" values in the older parts of Columbia (which were overpriced at the peak) relative to the rest of the county.

I don't wish to discourage people from moving to Columbia, at all. It's still a nice area with many amenities. The changing downtown could attract people looking for a more walkable environment but that would be restricted to a pretty small radius around downtown. It's where I'd look if I wasn't thinking about schools and probably does have the best chances for good appreciation within Columbia. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics