There are some great elementary schools in PG county. Middle and high school aren't great unless you go to Eleanor Roosevelt. But ER is a science/tech magnet school and I know lots of kids in my PG county neighborhood that did not get in. Community Friends School is near by and gets rave reviews too.

Silver Spring isn't convenient to the edge cities (Frederick, Annapolis, Leesburg, Fredericksburg.) Car-free living is sort of possible there.

College Park, maybe? Does all of College park zone to Eleanor Roosevelt? There's some SFHs in that range. I don't know how many kids OP has. Some parts of Prince George's are such that you don't want to send your kids to school there but might be doable if you want private. No idea if they're places where errands can really be done on foot.

What aboot Columbia? Wasn't that designed to be like Reston, where you can sort of get away without having a car?

7:49 makes a good point, you might be zoned to Einstein, but if your immediate neighbors are cool, it's way more bearable.

If OP were willing to go with a TH (even an end unit), it'd open more doors so to speak.

18:36 here. There is a huge difference in home prices in Kensington depending on where you are. We are right near OTES and almost everything around us is in the mid 300s to mid 400s. You don't get BCC or WJ, but I don't feel far from the city or like we are Wheaton. For 400k, you can get a nice house if you stay west of Connecticut and south of University. We love our neighborhood!

Hm. Where is this Kensington neighborhood where the average home price is $1 million? I can't picture it.

PP is probably talking about Chevy Chase View or Rock Creek Hills. I still think she's exaggerating, though. But not by much.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm not saying you can't buy in Takoma Park for that price, but houses at $400K are rare. IF you can find one, it will be most likely zoned for Rolling Terrace (which I'm not saying is a bad choice), and it would be a hike from Metro and not as a direct commute to downtown SS or downtown DC as Four Corners or Forest Glen would be. Plus, you'd have to pay city of takoma taxes. In that price range, I think you'd get more for your money in Silver Spring.

Current listings in TP:
http://www.redfin.com/MD/Takoma-Park/6706-Prince-Georges-Ave-20912/home/11150452

http://www.redfin.com/MD/Takoma-Park/8007-Wildwood-Dr-20912/home/10974067

Holy Crap! Seeing a Takoma park listing was nostalgic, but then I saw $6,000/year property tax, it's like YIKES!!! (plus MD's income tax is about 3.5% more a year). That home in NoVA would have only $3500 property taxes.

Yes, agree!

But that first listing was cute, no?

Several neighborhoods in Kensington are WAY more than 400K. Specifically the neighborhoods that feed into BCC high school and WJ high school. Houses in our neighborhood average 750k to 1 million.

Hm. Where is this Kensington neighborhood where the average home price is $1 million? I can't picture it.

Anonymous wrote:

I'm not saying you can't buy in Takoma Park for that price, but houses at $400K are rare. IF you can find one, it will be most likely zoned for Rolling Terrace (which I'm not saying is a bad choice), and it would be a hike from Metro and not as a direct commute to downtown SS or downtown DC as Four Corners or Forest Glen would be. Plus, you'd have to pay city of takoma taxes. In that price range, I think you'd get more for your money in Silver Spring.

Current listings in TP:
http://www.redfin.com/MD/Takoma-Park/6706-Prince-Georges-Ave-20912/home/11150452

http://www.redfin.com/MD/Takoma-Park/8007-Wildwood-Dr-20912/home/10974067

Holy Crap! Seeing a Takoma park listing was nostalgic, but then I saw $6,000/year property tax, it's like YIKES!!! (plus MD's income tax is about 3.5% more a year). That home in NoVA would have only $3500 property taxes.

Anonymous wrote:Kensington has MARC train to Silver Spring (it's the next stop after Kensington), so that's an option.

Depends on where you are in Kensington, you can take Connecticut, Newport Mills, Univ. Blvd, Beach Drive to get to Bethesda, Rockville, Wheaton, and Aspen Hill pretty easily.

Several neighborhoods in Kensington are WAY more than 400K. Specifically the neighborhoods that feed into BCC high school and WJ high school. Houses in our neighborhood average 750k to 1 million.

Kensington has MARC train to Silver Spring (it's the next stop after Kensington), so that's an option.

Depends on where you are in Kensington, you can take Connecticut, Newport Mills, Univ. Blvd, Beach Drive to get to Bethesda, Rockville, Wheaton, and Aspen Hill pretty easily.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forest Glen neighborhood in Silver Spring, right by Metro, straight shot to downtown SS, Oakland Terrace ES is well-rated.

Four Corners in Silver Spring (elementary school is Montgomery Knolls). Friendly, convenient, easy to get to Metro and downtown SS.

No to Olney if your wife doesn't drive.

Thanks for the suggestions. How do you feel about the middle schools and high schools for those neighborhoods?

For $400k, you're not going to get much better close-in.

WHAT? You didn't even answer the question. OP doesn't seem to care about close in or not, they care about schools and you didn't answer that.

We looked in that price range about two years ago (before deciding not to buy and boy are we happy because our commutes would have sucked if we moved to that area).

Anyway, we looked in the following areas in the following order:

1. Takoma Park - then we discovered we could really only afford the PG part of Takoma Park which is further away and starts to feel a little run down near New Hampshire Ave.
2. Forest Glen area - then we discovered there is no easy way to get there. Georgia Avenue is the worst street ever, and that part of Georgia Ave. is totally gridlocked all the time. And the cheapest houses back right up to the beltway which is noisy!
3. Kensington - until we realized that we were actually pretty far away from the city and our commutes would seriously suck b/c the only way in and out of Kensington is Connecticut Ave. and honestly it feels kind of remote, there's nothing close by.
3.5 Wheaton which our real estate agent said was still Kensington, but um no, it was Wheaton and had the same "far away" issue as Kensington.

PG county.

aspen hill park

Could you do Kensington (not proper so feeds into Einstein HS)? We live there now and our house is about 400k. I know Oakland Terr is well liked for elementary, but not sure about middle and high school. (We have young kids and plan to move before middle school so I've never paid much attention to school beyond OTES.)

Anonymous wrote:Forest Glen neighborhood in Silver Spring, right by Metro, straight shot to downtown SS, Oakland Terrace ES is well-rated.

Four Corners in Silver Spring (elementary school is Montgomery Knolls). Friendly, convenient, easy to get to Metro and downtown SS.

No to Olney if your wife doesn't drive.

+1