Reply to Bowie rocks! Why isn't it more popular?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have 2 colleagues, one lives in Lanham, one lives in N.Arlington both are minorities. The one in Lanham paid $260k for a SFH in Lanham in 1995, the house is worth 350k(as per him), the one in N.Arlington paid 295k for a SFH in 22207 in 1998, the house is worth 1.2million. Both are friends and the contrast in two situations is so stark to me.

I completely agree that your house should not be a part of your investment portfolio but the difference in wealth acquired will reverberate for generations. I know so many professionals who live in PG, they have gained little in real estate wealth. Things may change but these are the facts and realities of today. So, Bowie must be nice but things are good as long as you go there with realistic expectations and knowing that you may not amass much in real estate wealth.[/quote]

Again, the problem is that PG county was  hit hardest by the recession and housing collapse from 2008-2011.  Taking out those years, both before and after, PG county had the highest percentage increases over other beltway communities.

I bought a home in Laurel in 1995 for $139K.  It was 1800 sf and 3 BR.  I would not have been able to get much for under $150K in most of the other beltway communities at the time.  My good college friend paid $165K for a small 1200 sf 2 bedroom place in Rockville and it was a real fixer-upper that required A LOT of work.  I sold in 2008 for $315K.  If I could have gotten the home ready to sell in 2006, I could have sold for $400K as a house down the street, same model, same level of home improvement sold for $399K about 6 months before I was ready to sell.

That house dropped in value from $315K to $215K and is back up to about $332K.  But for the value at the time, I could not have gotten anything for my price range.  The same scenario holds now.  If you have a limited amount of funds for a downpayment and house payments, you have to look into PG.  If you are truly middle class and not what DCUM considers middle class, you cannot afford to live in most of MoCo and NoVa.  You either have to move farther out or look in PG or be willing to make 1001 other compromises (townhome/condo instead of SF, very, very big fixer uppers needing lots of work, etc).  Most middle income families are priced out of most of MoCo and NoVa. [/quote]

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